LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


OK 


Accession       o  O  O  O  o 


LETTER 


THE 


THE  BOARD  OF  TRUSTEES 


UNIVERSITY    OF  MISSISSIPPI. 


FREDERICK  A.  P.  BARNARD,  IL.D., 


PRESIDENT     OF     THE     UNIVERSITY. 


OXFORD : 

UNIVERSITY     OF    MISSISSIPPI. 
1858. 


LETTER 


THE 


THE  BOARD  OF  TRUSTEES 


UNIVERSITY    OF  MISSISSIPPI 


FREDERICK  A.  P.  BARNARD,  IL.D., 


PRESIDENT     OF     THE     UNIVERSITY. 


OXFORD : 

UNIVERSITY    OF    MISSISSIPPI. 
1858. 


5 


''4 


TRUSTEES 


of 


His  EXCELLENCY  WILLIAM  Me  WILLIE. 

^ttrciarg  anb  foasurer. 
HON.  JAMES  M.  HOWRY. 

HON.  JAMES  ALEXANDER  VENTRESS,  WOODVILLE. 

HON.  ISAAC  N.  DAVIS,  ....  PANOLA  Co. 

HON.  JAMES  M.  HOWRY,    .         .         .  OXFORD. 

HON.  ALEXANDER  II.  PEGUES,    .         .  LA  FAYETTE  Co. 

JAMES  BROWN,  ESQ.,          .         .         .  OXFORD. 

HON.  WILLIAM  L.  SHARKEY,         .         .  JACKSON. 

GEORGE  H.  YOUNG,  ESQ.,          .         .  WAVERLEY. 

HON.  COTESWORTH  P.  SMITH,      .        .  WOODVILLE. 

HON.  JOHN  J.  McRAE,         .         .         .  CLARK  Co. 

WILLIAM  F.  DOWD,  ESQ.,      .         .         .  ABERDEEN. 

HON.  J.  W.  CLAPP,      ....  HOLLY  SPRINGS. 

HON.  CHARLES  CLARK,  .         .         .  BOLIVAR  Co. 

HON.  ALEX.   M.  CLAYTON,  MARSHALL  Co. 


86583 


LETTER. 


Stmtarsiin  of  glississippt,  glarcfr  15, 


To  THE  MEMBERS  OF 

TUB  BOARD  OF  TRUSTEES  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  MISSISSIPPI:  — 

GENTLEMEN  :  — 

CEETAIN  matters  of  weight  relating  to  tlie  system  of 
education  and  instruction  pursued  in  this  institution, 
have  long  appeared  to  the  undersigned  to  require,  when 
the  fitting  moment  should  arrive,  your  deliberate  and 
careful  attention.  The  undersigned  has  therefore,  for 
the  last  two  or  three  years,  constantly  cherished  the 
purpose  to  lay  these  matters  before  you,  so  soon  as  the 
internal  condition  of  the  University,  in  regard  to  its  in 
strumental  means  and  material  conveniences  for  impart 
ing  instruction  of  the  highest  order,  should  have  begun 
to  approximate  to  that  degree  of  perfection  at  which 
you  have  been  so  steadily  and  perse  veringly  aiming. 
That  period,  accelerated  by  the  provision  made  by  the 
Legislature  of  the  State,  at  its  session  of  185G,  in  re- 
spouse  to  your  appeal,  appears  now  to  have  arrived  ; 


(5  LETTER. 

and  there  remains  no  longer  any  reason  why  the  con 
sideration  of  the  matters  to  which  allusion  has  just  been 
made  should  be  any  longer  deferred. 

In  the  beginning,  it  may  seem  proper  to  explain  for 
what  reason  the  undersigned  has  chosen  to  adopt  the 
present  form  of  communication  with  the  members  of 
your  honorable  body,  instead  of  awaiting  the  period  of 
your  stated  annual  meeting,  and  embodying  the  topics 
here  discussed  into  the  usual  official  report  of  the  head 
of  the  University.  Were  these  topics  such  as  to  call 
only  for  ordinary  legislation,  this  latter  course  would 
undoubtedly  be  the  most  appropriate.  But  involving, 
as  they  do,  a  consideration  of  the  expediency  of  in 
troducing  into  the  arrangement  and  division  of  the 
subjects  embraced  in  the  educational  course  already 
existing,  changes  of  some  considerable  moment,  it  is 
eminently  desirable  that  they  should  be  made  subjects 
of  more  mature  and  deliberate  reflection,  than  the 
usually  brief  duration  of  your  annual  sessions  allows ; 
and  it  will  no  doubt  be  considered  by  yourselves  also 
an  advantage  to  be  able  to  make  them  a  subject  of  con 
sultation  with  the  friends  of  education  among  the 
people  of  the  State,  before  you  shall  be  called  on  to 
pass  upon  them  your  final  judgment.  These  reasons 
have  determined  the  undersigned  to-  express  his  views 
in  the  form  of  a  circular  letter,  issued  long  enough  be- 

'  O  O 

fore  the  period  of  your  annual  assembling,  to  enable 
you  to  bring  to  the  meeting  opinions  unembarrassed  by 
hesitation  or  doubt. 


LETTER, 


It  need  hardly  be  called  to  your  attention  that  the 
educational  world  has  long  been  agitated  by  the  ques 
tion,  whether  the  American  college  system  has  not 
failed  to  keep  pace  with  the  intellectual  advancement 
of  the  age  in  which  we  live.  So  large  have  been  the 
conquests  of  mind,  especially  in  the  field  of  physical 
science,  during  the  present  century,  that  a  much  more 
considerable  amount  of  positive  knowledge  is  now  ex 
pected  of  a  liberally  educated  man,  than  was  the  case 
when  the  system  originated.  Such  knowledge  it  is  de 
manded  that  the  colleges  shall  impart;  yet  the  popular 
voice,  in  making  this  demand,  disregards  almost  entirely 
the  consideration  that  the  college  system,  in  its  theoiy, 
contemplates  not  so  much  the  communication  of  know 
ledge  as  the  discipline  and  training  of  the  intellectual 
powers.  And  the  attempt  to  silence  the  importunity 
by  holding  up  this  consideration,  is  practically  vain; 
for  if  the  value  of  the  knowledge  and  its  necessity  to 
the  completeness  of  a  finished  education  be  admitted, 
the  fact  that  it  can  nowhere  be  generally  obtained  if 
not  in  colleges,  is  always  deemed  a  sufficient  reply.  It 
is  therefore  claimed  that,  however  exclusive  of  all  pur 
poses  but  one  may  have  been  the  original  idea  of  the 
system,  the  condition  of  the  world  forbids  that  it  should 
longer  continue  to  be  so.  It  is  claimed  that  the  neces 
sity  of  the  age  requires  of  colleges,  that  they  should 
no  longer  teach  merely  with  the  view,  through  the  exer 
cise  of  the  mind  upon  the  subjects  taught,  to  develop 
the  intellectual  powers;  but  that,  besides  this,  they 


8  LETTER. 

should  make  knowledge  itself,  for  its  uses,  the  end  of 
their  teaching,  and  should  therefore,  teach  much  more 
than  was  esteemed  necessary — more,  in  fact,  than  existed 
to  be  taught — a  century  ago.  The  colleges  have  tacitly 
admitted  the  justice  of  this  claim.  They  have  yielded 
to  the  urgency  of  a  demand  which  they  saw  no  means 
of  resisting.  They  have  adopted  successively  into  their 
course,  many  studies  which  have  no  especial  discipli 
nary  value,  and  many  which,  fifty  years  ago,  were  not 
regarded  as  having  any  proper  place  there.  In  some 
instances  this  has  undoubtedly  been  done  in  the  sincere 
hope  of  enlarging  their  usefulness ;  in  others,  through 
the  apprehension  of  a  loss  of  public  patronage,  without; 
and  in  others  still,  merely  from  a  spirit  of  imitation. 
But,  in  the  mean  time,  the  period  covered  by  the  entire 
course  has  remained  unaltered.  Much  more  in  quantity 
is  nominally  taught,  but  no  greater  length  of  time  is 
devoted  to  the  teaching.  The  conclusion  is  therefore 
irresistible,  either  that  the  original  design  of  the  college 
is  no  longer  perfectly  secured,  or  that  the  additional 
subjects  are  very  inadequately  taught,  or — a  supposition 
more  probable  than  either — that  both  these  disadvan 
tages  exist  together. 

That  the  efficiency  of  the  college  course,  considered 
as  a  system  of  intellectual  discipline,  has  been  impaired 
by  the  additions  which  have  been  made  to  it,  is  a  point 
which  need  hardly  be  argued ;  for  it  is  self-evident  that 
if  it  were  tolerably  well  adjusted  in  the  beginning,  it 
must  now  be  excessively  overloaded.  Nor  need  we  seek 


LETTER.  9 

to  fortify  tlie  argument  by  insisting  on  the  compara 
tively  imperfect  adaptation  of  many  of  the  added 
studies  to  the  purposes  of  mental  training ;  since,  what 
ever  may  be  their  character  in  this  respect,  it  is  impos 
sible  that  they  should  be  productive  of  beneficial  effects 
except  in  proportion  as  they  can  be  mastered  within  the 
time  allotted  to  them.  However  true  it  may  be  that 
the  mind  is  improved  and  strengthened  by  the  pro. 
cesses  through  w^hich  it  is  informed,  it  is  certainly  not 
reasonable  to  look  for  such  results  from  those  hasty  or 
confused  operations  which  fail  clearly  to  inform  it.  It 
is  only  those  efforts  of  the  understanding  which  termi 
nate  in  a  consciousness  of  real  mastery  over  a  subject  of 
thought,  which,  in  an  educational  point  of  view,  are 
truly  useful ;  and  it  is  certain  that  the  instruction  given 
in  colleges  is,  in  this  sense,  just  so  far  thrown  away  as 
it  leads  to  the  formation  of  superficial,  vague,  or 
shadowy  notions  of  truth. 

Should  the  conjecture  be  hazarded  that  the  evil  here 
charged  upon  a  system,  is  possibly  due  only  to  the  ineffi 
ciency  of  men— that  if  the  knowledge  imparted  by  our 
colleges  upon  many  of  the  subjects  which  they  profess 
edly  teach,  is  actually  imperfect  and  vague,  the  fault  is 
to  be  ascribed  to  want  of  zeal  or  ability  in  the  teachers, 
and  not  to  the  nature  of  things — it  appears  to  the  un 
dersigned  that  the  injustice  of  such  an  imputation  may 
easily  be  made  to  appear.  For  this  purpose  it  will  be 
quite  sufficient  to  consider  in  detail  the  various  subjects 
in  science  and  letters  which  the  course  embraces,  and 


10  LETTER. 

to  compare  the  aggregate  with  the  limited  time  which 
is  allotted  to  their  study.  If  we  reduce  this  time  to 
days  or  weeks,  and  then  divide  it  by  the  total  number 
of  subjects,  the  result  will  be  to  indicate,  of  course, 
what  is  the  average  space  allotted  to  each  particular 
subject  within  the  four  years  to  which  the  course  ex 
tends.  Inasmuch,  however,  as  the  pressure  is  chiefly 
on  the  two  latter  years,  and  as  it  is  to  these  that  the  en 
croachments  made  by  modern  additions  have  been  prin 
cipally  confined,  it  will  be  by  considering  them  apart 
from  the  earlier  years,  that  the  disproportion  between 
matter  and  time  will  be  made  most  striking. 

Now,  if  we  examine  the  curriculum  of  study  as  laid 
down  in  the  prospectus  of  the  University  of  Mississippi, 
we  shall  find  that,  during  the  Junior  and  Senior  years, 
we  profess  to  give  instruction  in  four  languages  besides 
the  English — two  of  them  introduced  during  these 
years  for  the  first  time — and  that  to  these  subjects 
we  add  the  History  of  Ancient  Literature,  Ethics, 
Metaphysics,  Political  Economy,  Natural  Philosophy, 
Astronomy,  Civil  Engineering,  Chemistry,  Mineralogy, 
Geology,  International  Law,  and  Constitutional  Law — in 
all  sixteen  subjects,  most  or  all  of  them  of  great  extent. 
The  time  allotted  to  the  study  of  these,  deduction  being 
made  for  examinations,  amounts  to  two  sessions  of  forty 
weeks  each,  in  all  eighty  weeks ;  which  allows,  upon 
an  average,  five  weeks  to  each  study.  But  if  we  con 
sider  that  several  of  the  titles  here  enumerated  are  gen 
eral  titles,  embracing  under  them  several  subordinate 


LETTER. 


but  quite  distinct  subjects,  it  will  be  immediately  evi 
dent  that  even  the  small  average  of  time  above  stated 
must  be  still  further  reduced.  Several  of  the  subjects 
of  Natural  Philosophy  cohere  so  loosely  as  hardly  to 
be  united  except  by  a  common  name.  Astronomy  has 
three  or  four  ramifications,  broadly  distinct.  General 
Chemistry  has  two  large  sub-divisions;  and  applied 
Chemistry,  as  related  to  metallurgy,  to  manufactures,  to 
medicine,  to  agriculture,  and  to  analysis,  several  more. 
Geology  is  descriptive,  theoretic,  and  economical  ;  and 
Paleontology,  an  allied  science,  has  attained  a  position 
almost  independent.  Civil  Engineering  is  a  mixed 
science,  involving  many  applications  of  mathematical 
principles  and  physical  laws,  and  in  addition  to  these, 
the  gathered  results  of  much  actual  observation  and 
experiment,  and  the  practical  rules  of  several  mechanic 
arts.  Should  we,  therefore,  endeavor  to  sub-divide  the 
material  embraced  under  the  several  titles  drawn,  as 
above,  from  the  published  programme  of  the  University 
course,  into  portions  each  sufficiently  differing  from 
those  with  which  it  is  associated  to  justify  its  distinct 
enumeration  as  a  separate  subject  of  study,  we  should 
obtain  as  a  result  a  total  of  between  thirty  and  forty  ; 
and  by  consequence,  an  allotment  to  each  of  little  more 
than  two  weeks. 

It  is  true  that  the  system  of  instruction  pursued  in 
colleges,  founded,  as  it  is,  on  the  principle  of  keeping 
the  several  faculties  of  the  mind  in  proportionate  and 
enarly  simultaneous  activity,  requires  that  several  of  the 


I   R 


1%  LETTER. 

studies  above  enumerated  should  be  pursued  together ; 
so  that  no  one  of  these  subjects  is  actually  dismissed  in 
the  short  time  which  these  calculations  would  assign  to 
it.  But  it  is  no  less  true  that,  however  long  any  one  of 
them  may  continue  to  constitute  a  part  of  the  daily 
employment  of  the  student,  it  cannot  actually,  in  the 
final  aggregate,  occupy  a  greater  portion  of  his  atten 
tion  than  the  computation  shows ;  or,  at  least,  that  if  it 
should  do  so,  the  advantage  could  only  be  secured  at 
the  expense  of  the  rest.  This  exhibit  is,  therefore, 
sufficient  in  itself  to  demonstrate  that  if  there  be  super 
ficiality  in  the  attainments  of  the  graduates  of  our  col 
leges,  this  fault,  or  this  evil,  is  not  fairly  chargeable  to 
the  instructors.  It  is  the  system  itself  which  has  be 
come  vitiated  by.  the  attempt  to  make  it  accomplish 
something  inconsistent  with  its  original  design. 

The  evil  has  been  the  growth  of  years.  It  has  accu 
mulated  by  degrees  almost  imperceptible.  Each  succes 
sive  addition  has  probably  seemed  inconsiderable  to 
those  who  made  it,  but  the  united  sum  has  become  intol 
erable.  Could  it,  in  the  nature  of  things,  have  been 
possible  that  a  proposition  should  at  any  one  time  have 
been  made  for  a  sudden  change  from  the  system  as  it 
existed  a  century  ago  to  the  system  of  to-day,  it  is  in 
conceivable  that  it  should  have  been  entertained  by 
enlightened  educators  for  a  moment. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  views  here  presented 
have  taken  a  strong  hold  of  the  minds  of  the  friends  of 
education  throughout  the  United  States.  There  can  be 


LETTER.  13 

no  doubt  of  the  existence  of  a  disposition  widely  ex 
tended,  to  adopt  some  mode  of  relieving  the  course  of 
undergraduate  study  in  our  colleges  of  some  part  of  its 
excessive  burthen.  This  has  manifested  itself  in  various 
ways.  It  has  manifested  itself,  in  some  instances,  in  the 
introduction  of  parallel  courses  of  study,  as  at  Brown 
University,  the  University  of  Rochester,  Union  College, 
and  partially  at  Harvard.  It  has  manifested  itself  in 
attempts  to  throw  open  all  the  departments  of  learning 
to  the  choice  of  the  undergraduate  student,  after  the 
plan  of  the  University  of  Virginia — an  institution  which 
has  pursued  this  policy  from  the  beginning ;  but  this 
expedient,  however  apparently  successful  in  that  now 
celebrated  seminary,  has  elsewhere  usually  entailed  infi 
nite  annoyance,  and  not  seldom  disaster,  upon  those  who 
have  adopted  it.  It  has  manifested  itself,  again,  in  a 
manner  more  visibly  productive  of  valuable  results  in 
the  creation,  in  connection  with  some  of  our  colleges, 
of  extra-collegiate  departments,  devoted  mainly  to  theo 
retic  and  practical  science,  and  to  the  applications  of 
Chemistry  and  Philosophy  to  the  arts.  And  finally,  it 
has  manifested  itself  in  the  establishment,  in  a  college 
which  had  previously  presented  but  a  single  course  of 
study  terminating  in  the  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts,  of 
a  second  course,  intended  to  commence  where  the  first 
ends,  and  leading  to  the  higher  degree  of  Master  of 
Arts. 

This  last  mode  of  dealing  with  the  case  has  long 
seemed  to  the  undersigned  to  be  the  most  judicious ;  and 


L  E  T  T  E  E. 


its  adoption  in  this  University  has  seemed  to  him  to  be 
the  measure  best  adapted  to  increase  the  usefulness  of 
the  institution,  while  possessing  the  additional  recom 
mendation  of  at  the  same  time  elevating  its  character. 
It  is  a  measure  further  recommended  by  the  approval  of 
very  high  authority,  and  by  the  precedent  of  some  of 
the  most  distinguished  institutions  of  learning  in  the 
country.  The  Southern  Quarterly  Review,  in  an  article 
published  in  the  spring  of  1856  —  an  article  understood 
to  be  from  the  pen  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Thornwell,  late  the 
president  of  the  College  of  South  Carolina,  a  gentleman 
without  a  superior  among  Southern  educators  —  points 
out  precisely  this  mode  of  relieving  our  colleges  of  their 
burthen.  In  the  re-arrangement  of  the  system  of  in 
struction  of  Brown  University,  which  took  place  in 
1850,  in  accordance  with  the  ably  argued  views  of  the 
eminent  man  then  at  the  head  of  that  institution  —  Dr. 
Wayland  —  a  course  of  study  for  the  Master's  degree 
was  introduced  as  a  part  of  the  new-  system.  The  Uni 
versity  of  Virginia,  which  permits  to  all  its  students  to 
select  their  departments  of  study,  makes,  nevertheless, 
definite  exactions  of  all  who  aspire  to  the  degree  of 
Bachelor  of  Arts  ;  and  much  higher  exactions  of  such 
as  aim  to  proceed  to  the  degree  of  Master.  And  during 
the  past  year,  Columbia  College,  in  the  city  of  New 
York,  one  of  the  most  wealthy  institutions  in  the  coun 
try,  and  also  one  of  the  earliest  established,  after  a  long 
period  of  deliberate  inquiry  and  extensive  correspon 
dence  with  the  most  experienced  friends  of  education 


LETTER.  15 

throughout  the  United  States,  has  instituted  exactly  the 
system*  which  is  here  recommended. 

The  expediency  of  adopting  a  similar  system  here, 
cannot,  therefore,  be  justly  regarded  as  problematical. 
The  system  has,  in  effect,  been  already  tried ;  and  its 
adoption  by  the  enlightened  Board  of  Trustees  of 
Columbia  College,  during  the  past  year,  with  the  results 
of  experiment,  and  the  approving  opinions  of  the  most 
competent  authorities  in  the  country  before  them,  is  evi 
dence  that  it  is  in  accordance  with  the  exigencies  of  the 
case,  and  with  the  spirit  of  progress  which  characterizes 
the  age. 

It  will  probably  be  expected  of  the  undersigned, 
not  merely  in  general  terms  to  suggest  a  division  of 
the  studies  now  pursued  in  college  into  two  distinct 
and  separate  courses;  but  to  specify  particularly  the 
subjects  to  be  embraced  by  each, — or,  where  subjects 
are  identical,  the  comparative  extent  which  it  is  pro 
posed  to  give  to  the  corresponding  studies  in  the  two 
successive  courses.  The  sub-graduate  course  may  be 
defined  by  the  very  simple  process  of  excluding  from 
the  curriculum  of  study  as  it  stands  at  present,  all  those 
branches  of  science  which  are  confessedly  modern  addi 
tions,  and  along  with  these,  the  modern  languages.  This 
course  will,  therefore,  as  re-constructed,  embrace  the 
English,  Latin,  and  Greek  languages,  all  the  elementary 
branches  of  the  pure  Mathematics,  the  mechanical 
branches  of  Natural  Philosophy,  Logic,  Rhetoric,  the 
principles  of  Criticism,  Moral  and  Mental  Philosophy, 


16  LETTER. 

Composition,  and  Elocution.  These  several  branches  of 
study  are  to  be  pursued  to  something  like  the  extent, 
and  with  something  like  the  thoroughness  contemplated 
in  the  earlier  period  of  the  history  of  our  collegiate 
instraction.  To  these,  it  may  not  be  thought  improper 
to  add,  during  the  concluding  year,  succinct  expository 
courses  in  Chemistry  and  the  subjects  of  Natural  Philos 
ophy,  not  strictly  mechanical ;  these  topics  being  taught 
avowedly  in  outline  only,  and  not  as  matters  to  be  em 
braced  in  the  examination  for  the  Bachelor's  degree. 
The  design  of  this  feature,  if  introduced,  will  be,  in  part, 
to  vary  to  the  student  the  interest  of  his  daily  occupa 
tions  ;  but  chiefly,  by  giving  some  slight  foretaste  of  the 
nature  of  the  subjects  thus  treated,  to  awaken  in  him  a 
desire  to  enter  upon  the  more  thorough  study  of  the 
same  subjects  in  the  higher  department.  The  amount 
of  time  bestowed  in  this  way  need  be  but  limited. 
Whatever  is  more  than  enough  to  secure  the  ends  just 
mentioned,  and  especially  the  latter  of  them,  is  capable, 
during  the  period  of  the  student's  education  here  con 
sidered,  of  better  occupation. 

To  the  post-graduate  department,  may  be  turned  over 
those  branches  of  science  and  letters  which  are  excluded 
from  the  former,  and  which  are  confessedly  at  present, 
but  imperfectly  taught ;  and  the  number  of  these  may 
from  time  to  time  be  increased,  by  adding  new  ones  as 
the  wants  of  the  public  and  the  growing  resources  of  the 
University  may  demand  or  justify.  Thus,  it  may  immedi 
ately  include  Astronomy,  Geology,  Mineralogy,  Chemis- 


LETTER.  17 

try,  Natural  Philosophy,  Meteorology,  Civil  Engineering, 
the  higher  branches  of  the  pure  Mathematics,  Greek  and 
Roman  Letters,  the  Modern  Languages  and  their  Litera 
ture,  Political  Economy,  International  Law,  Constitu 
tional  Law,  and  the  History  of  Philosophy;  but  it 
probably  will  include  at  first  only  such  of  this  list  as  are 
most  practical  in  their  nature.  As  in  creating  this 
department,  the  design  should  be  from  the  beginning, 
to  build  up  here  ultimately  a  University  in  the  largest 
acceptation  of  that  term,  it  is  to  be  expected  that,  in 
the  progress  of  years,  schools  of  Agriculture,  of  Natural 
History,  of  Medical  Science,  of  Civil  and  Political  His 
tory,  of  Oriental  Learning,  and  others,  will  be  established 
as  they  shall  appear  to  be  needed ;  and  that  the  existing 
School  of  Law  will  be  strengthened  by  the  addition  of 
new  professorships. 

The  instruction  given  in  all  the  schools  of  this  higher 
department  is  to  proceed  on  the  supposition  that  the 
student  is  familiar  with  every  thing  taught  in  the  sub- 
graduate  course,  relating  to  the  branches  of  study 
corresponding  to  those  he  is  pursuing.  Since,  however, 
the  design  of  the  proposed  change  is  to  insure  to  the 
student  a  thorough  and  satisfactory  acquaintance  with 
extended  and  difficult  subjects  of  knowledge,  in  regard 
to  which  the  present  system  furnishes  him  only  with 
indistinct  and  superficial  notions,  it  is  a  feature  of  essen 
tial  importance  in  the  new  plan,  that  every  post-graduate 
student  shall  be  perfectly  free  to  choose  the  schools  in 

which  he  will  study ;  and  that  no  one  shall  be  obliged 

2 


18  LETTER. 

to  study  any  thing  which  he  does  not  choose.  But 
since  the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts,  if  ever  conferred, 
must  have  a  certain  significancy  in  order  to  be  of 
value,  it  would  be  proper  to  adopt  here  such  rules  on 
this  subject  as  exist  in  the  University  of  Virginia,  and  to 
admit  to  the  honor  of  this  degree  only  those  who  have 
exhibited  proficiency  in  a  prescribed  number  and  variety 
of  schools.  The  Master's  degree,  moreover,  should  not 
be  conferred  upon  any  who  have  not  been  previously, 
either  in  this  University  or  in  some  other,  graduated  as 
Bachelors  of  Arts.  This  regulation  will  have  a  favor 
able  influence  in  encouraging  young  men  to  begin  at  the 
beginning,  and  to  take  the  regular  collegiate  course, 
rather  than  to  attempt  the  studies  of  the  higher  depart 
ment  without  the  important  preliminary  intellectual 
training. 

The  department  ought,  nevertheless,  to  be  freely 
open  to  all  who  may  wish  to  enter  it,  and  who  may 
have  prepared  themselves,  either  in  schools  or  by  pri 
vate  study,  to  avail  themselves  with  profit  of  the  oppor 
tunities  it  affords.  But  it  should  not  undertake  to 
furnish  such  preparation,  since  this  would  be  to  defeat 
its  own  object.  With  elementary  instruction  it  should 
have  nothing  to  do.  But  if  any  one,  whether  a  graduate 
of  a  college  or  not,  should  desire  to  go  thoroughly  to 
the  bottom  of  any  subject  which  the  University  pro 
fesses  to  teach,  he  should  be  free  to  pursue  his  object  in 
this  department,  and  should  be  furnished  with  every  aid 
which  books,  and  instruments,  and  competent  teachers 


LETTER.  19 

can  afford.  Thus,  if  it  is  the  desire  of  any  young  man 
to  obtain  a  satisfactory  acquaintance  with  the  applica 
tions  of  mathematical  principles  and  physical  truths  to 
the  art  of  construction,  and  with  the  accumulated  results 
of  observation  and  experiment  in  this  important  branch 
of  practical  science,  let  him  come  here  and  make,  if  he 
pleases,  Civil  Engineering  his  exclusive  study,  until  such 
time  as  he  may  begin  to  feel  some  confidence  in  the 
value  of  the  knowledge  he  shall  have  acquired.  Or  if 
his  aim  is  to  become  a  master  of  the  art  of  Chemical 
Analysis,  or  of  Chemistry  as  applied  to  Agriculture,  let 
him  have  the  opportunity  to  turn  his  attention  with 
equal  exclusiveness  in  that  direction,  and  the  assistance 
which  may  be  necessary  to  enable  him  to  attain  the 
desired  end.  And  so  of  the  several  other  branches  of 
letters  and  science  which  may  be  provided  for  in  this 
higher  department  of  the  University — embracing  in  the 
ultimate  design,  of  course,  every  possible  subject  of 
human  learning  or  human  investigation  ;  let  all  be  acces 
sible  to  all  applicants  whose  degree  of  intellectual  ad 
vancement  is  such  at  the  outset  as  to  enable  them  to 
profit  by  the  opportunities  afforded. 

.  It  is,  of  course,  assumed  that  the  students  in  this 
higher  department  will  be  in  earnest  in  the  pursuit  of 
knowledge ;  an  assumption  which  cannot  safely  be  made 
of  the  body  of  the  under-graduates  of  our  colleges.  Nor 
is  it  difficult  to  find  reasons  for  a  fact  of  so  general  ob 
servation.  One  of  these  is,  doubtless,  the  immaturity  of 
the  youthful  student  himself;  in  consequence  of  which 


20  LETTER. 

he  is  yet  to  learn  botli  the  importance  of  mental  culture, 
and  the  value  of  positive  knowledge.  Another  is  pre 
sented  in  the  circumstance  that  the  under-graduate  stu 
dent  is  not  always,  perhaps  not  usually,  a  member  of  an 
institution  of  learning  entirely  of  his  own  voluntary 
choice  ;  but  that  he  has  become  such  in  compliance  with 
the  wishes  of  his  parents  and  friends;  often  with  no 
other  feeling  on  his  own  part  than  a  desire  to  make  his 
college  life  pass  away  as  agreeably  as  circumstances  will 
allow ;  a  desire  which  does  not  always  prompt  him  to 
seek  for  enjoyment  by  the  most  rational  means.  As  the 
avowed  end,  however,  of  the  sub-graduate  course  is 
mental  discipline,  the  institution  would  not  be  true  to 
this  end  if  it  failed  to  make  study  a  necessity ;  and  to 
hold  every  student,  so  far  as  its  means  of  coercion 
extend,  to  the  continuous,  steady,  and  faithful  perform 
ance  of  his  scholastic  tasks. 

It  is  this  circumstance,  principally,  which  shapes  the 
visible  system  of  instruction  in  operation  in  most  educa 
tional  institutions.  Since  the  student  is  to  be  held  to 
regular  daily  effort,  it  follows  that  in  the  absence  of  a 
disposition  to  labor  voluntarily  sufficiently  prevalent  to 
be  safely  relied  on,  some  effectual  means  must  be  em 
ployed  of  verifying  the  degree  of  fidelity  with  which  the 
constantly  recurring  tasks  are  performed.  Hence  is 
apparent  the  propriety  of  requiring  the  student,  at 
stated  and  frequently  recurring  intervals,  to  show  how 
far  he  has  acquainted  himself  with  the  subjects  which 
have  been  assigned  him  for  study,  and  how  far  he  has 


LETTER.  21 

comprehended  the  explanations  and  direct  instructions 
which  his  teacher  may  have  given  him  on  the  same 
subjects.  This  he  can  only  do,  or  can  best  do,  by 
expressing  his  knowledge  in  words — that  is  to  say,  by 
recitation.  Accordingly,  it  is  primarily  for  the  sake  of 
securing  this  end,  that  the  recitation  system  exists,  not 
only  in  colleges,  but  in  schools  generally.  According  to 
Sir  William  Hamilton,  all  instruction  was  originally 
given  in  the  Universities  of  England,  as  it  continues  to 
be  in  the  continental  Universities,  by  lecture.  The 
colleges  and  halls  which  now  monopolize  the  principal 
work  of  teaching  in  those  venerable  institutions,  were 
erected  to  provide  for  the  physical  wants  of  the  students, 
and  to  secure  a  vigilant  supervision  over  their  morals. 
The  officers,  called  tutors,  employed  by  the  colleges  for 
the  latter  purpose,  gradually  took  upon  themselves  the 
character  of  instructors,  by  exacting  from  the  youth 
under  their  charge  a  repetition  of  what  they  had  learned 
in  the  public  lecture-halls.  To  this  kind  of  recitation 
they  subsequently  added  recitation  from  books.  The 
evident  design  of  the  exercise  in  its  origin,  was  that  in 
which  we  find  its  chief  utility  at  present — to  insure  the 
attention  of  the  pupil  to  the  subject  which  he  is  required 
to  know.  The  distinctive  name  given  by  the  French  to 
the  officer  whose  duty  it  is  merely  to  hear  recitations 
makes  it  sufficiently  evident  what  idea  is  associated  with 
the  exercise  by  them.  This  name — repetiteur — suggests 
to  the  mind  the  bare  repetition  of  a  task,  as  that  which 
it  is  the  business  of  the  officer  to  secure. 


22  LETTER. 

Now,  the  great  importance — the  indispensable  neces 
sity,  in  fact — of  a  recitation  system  as  a  part,  and  a 
principle  part,  of  the  plan  of  operations  of  an  institution 
designed  to  secure  the  mental  training  of  the  young,  at 
a  period  when  they  can  have  attained  no  adequate 
notion  of  the  value  of  this  discipline,  when  fondness  for 
amusement  is  a  predominant  trait  of  the  character  and 
when  the  love  of  learning  exists,  at  best,  but  as  an 
unsteady  and  wavering  flame,  has  apparently  led  to  the 
formation,  not  only  in  the  popular  mind,  but  even  in  the 
judgment  of  philosophic  thinkers,  of  a  notion  regarding 
the  position  of  this  exercise  among  educational  appli 
ances,  both  as  to  its  dignity  of  function,  and  as  to  its 
own  inherent  utility,  which  greatly  exaggerates  its  im 
portance.  However  general  may  be  the  surprise,  or 
however  wide  the  dissent,  which  this  remark  may  be 
fated  to  encounter,  it  may  be  pardoned  to  the  under 
signed  to  have  made  it,  since  it  can  lead  to  no  practical 
difference  between  him  and  those  whose  views  may  fail 
to  harmonize  with  his ;  inasmuch  as  he  has  acknowl 
edged  the  conviction  that,  to  the  under-graduate  course . 
of  instruction,  the  system  of  recitation,  or  of  daily 
examination,  is  absolutely  indispensable ;  and  inasmuch 
as  he  is  equally  free  to  admit  that,  if  employed  at  all, 
its  uninterrupted  and  rigorous  prosecution  is  a  condition 
in  the  highest  degree  essential  to  its  utility. 

But  recitation — repetition — per  se,  is  manifestly  an 
exercise  which,  to  the  student  who  is  really  in  earnest  in 
the  pursuit  of  knowledge,  is  hardly  worth  the  time  it 


LETTER.  23 

occupies.     It  is  not  denied  that  it  is  an  advantage  to 
any  man,  young  or  old,  to  express  liis  ideas  on  any 
subject  in  a  definite  form  of  words,  nor  even  that  the 
immature  mind  is  greatly  benefited  by  the  effort  neces 
sary  to  do  so.      All  that  Melanchthon  has  said,  all  that 
Hamilton  has  said,  all  that  any  panegyrist  of  the  system 
of  daily  examination  as  a  means  of  instruction  has  said, 
in  regard  to  the   incidental  advantages  growing  out  of 
the  method,  is  admitted  without   any  hesitation.      It 
stimulates  emulation,  it  cultivates  self-possession,  it  en 
courages  or  enforces  precision  of  speech,  it  abates  con 
ceit,  it  convinces  of  deficiency.      But  all  these  resultant 
benefits  presume  the  immaturity  of  the  learner;    and 
most  of  them  presume  furthermore  that  an  unceasing 
constraint  is  necessary  to  compel  him  to  profit  by  the 
instructions  he  receives.      The  undersigned  is  neverthe 
less,  fully  persuaded  that,  for  minds  which  have  been 
subjected  to  such  a  system  of  training  as  our   under 
graduate  course  provides,  which  are  to  a  certain  extent 
already  informed,  and  which  are  animated  to  effort  by  a 
sincere  and   earnest   desire  for  higher  attainments,  no 
such  system   of  constraint  is  necessary;   and  that  the 
plan  of  daily  examination,  in  so  far  as  it  is  designed  to 
exert  a  constraining  power  over  minds  like  these,  is 
unnecessary  and  out  of  place. 

In  order  to  be  perfectly  candid,  however,  the  admis 
sions  already  made  will  be  even  still  further  extended. 
It  will  be  conceded  that,  considered  as  an  instructive 
and  not  as  a  coercive  method,  the  system  of  daily  exam- 


24  LETTER. 

ination  is  attended  with  some  incidental  advantages 
besides  those  which  have  just  been  enumerated.  It  is  a 
possibility  that  a  student  who  has  failed  to  comprehend 
some  point  embraced  in  the  text  of  his  lesson,  may  be 
enlightened  by  listening  to  the  performance  of  a  fellow- 
student.  It  is  also  a  possibility,  or  rather  a  fact  of 
frequent  occurrence,  that  the  imperfect  performance  of 
an  individual  scholar,  may  indicate  to  the  instructor  the 
deficiencies  of  that  individual,  and  so  elicit  explanatory 
comments  or  illustrations.  It  is  further  true  that  the 
instructor  may  volunteer  explanations  and  elucidations 
of  points  of  difficulty,  even  though  occasion  may  not 
arise  to  force  their  introduction.  An  acute  instructor, 
moreover,  by  the  ingenious  selection  of  interrogatories, 
will  bring  out  the  wreak  points  of  a  pupil,  as  a  lawyer 
does  those  of  a  witness ;  or  will  bring  into  prominent 
relief  the  points  of  the  subjects  under  consideration 
which  are  of  highest  importance.  But  beyond  this,  it 
is  certainly  true  that  it  is  only  in  so  far  as,  for  whatever 
reason,  the  instructor  does  actually  superadd  his  own 
teachings  to  the  text  of  the  lesson,  that  any  talents  or 
attainments  which  may  belong  to  him  personally  can  be 
of  any  sort  of  use  to  his  pupils.  For  all  the  purposes 
of  mere  recitation,  any  man  who  is  capable  of  under 
standing  what  the  pupil  says,  and  of  reading  the  book 
or  books  from  which  he  has  learned  it,  so  as  to  compare 
the  performance  with  the  text,  is  as  good  and  as  capable 
a  presiding  officer  and  examiner  in  a  class-room,  as  any 
other.  The  teacher,  therefore,  who  meets  his  classes  for 


LETTER.  25 

no  purpose  at  any  time  but  to  "  hear  their  recitations," 
is  not  really  a  teacher,  except  in  so  far  as  he  engrafts 
upon  this  exercise  the  expository  feature  which  is  the 
distinguishing  characteristic  of  the  plan  of  instruction 
by  lecture.  To  do  this,  however,  to  any  extent,  in  the 
recitation-room,  without  seriously  interfering  with  the 
specific  design  for  which  the  exercise  of  recitation  was 
primarily  instituted,  is  proved  by  experience  to  be  im 
practicable.  Class  recitations  have,  at  best,  the  great 
disadvantage,  that  either  but  few  out  of  a  large  number 
can  perform  at  all,  or  that  each  one  who  performs  shall 
"be  under  examination  for  so  brief  a  space  of  time  as 
nearly  to  defeat  every  useful  object,  and  to  render  the 
exercise  little  better  than  an  idle  form. 

And  here  we  have  the  key  to  one  of  the  causes  which 
divest  the  exercise  of  daily  examination  of  much  of  its 
assumed  value.  In  a  class,  or  a  division  of  a  class,  of 
forty  students — and  this  number  is  not  an  unusual 
one — if  each  individual  is  called  upon  to  perform  in  a 
recitation  of  an  hour's  duration,  each  will  have,  as  the 
time  in  which  to  display  his  proficiency — no  allowance 
being  made  for  moments  lost  in  passing  from  one  to  an 
other,  in  pointing  out  passages  in  the  classics,  in  enun 
ciating  the  data  of  problems  in  the  mathematics,  and  in 
other  similar  ways — exactly  one  minute  and  a  half. 
Give  each  one  who  performs  five  minutes  (which  is 
certainly  not  a  large  allowance),  and  not  one  third  of 
the  class  can  be  taken  up  at  each  exercise.  These  facts 
the  student  can  observe,  these  calculations  the  student 


26  LETTER. 

can  make,  as  well  as  the  teacher ;  and  it  follows  as  a 
necessary  consequence,  that  the  recitation  system,  consid 
ered  as  a  system  of  coercion,  largely  fails  of  its  object ; 
while  in  regard  to  the  points  in  which  there  is  claimed 
for  it  an  educational  efficiency,  its  usefulness  is  corre 
spondingly  reduced. 

Another  serious  vice  of  the  system  is  its  pernicious 
influence  on  the  teacher.  To  whatever  degree  it  may 
be  coercive  to  the  student,  it  is  not  in  the  least  so  to 
him.  It  stimulates  him  to  no  self-improvement,  and 
awakens  in  him  no  ambition  for  higher  attainments,  on 
the  one  hand ;  and  it  affords  him  no  adequate  field  for 
the  display  of  genius,  or  for  the  turning  of  accumulated 
knowledge  to  use,  on  the  other.  Instead  of  this,  the 
opportunity  which  it  offers  him  of  sinking,  without  ob 
servation,  into  a  mere  cypher,  is  a  real,  a  perpetual,  and 
a  most  insidious  temptation  to  sloth.  The  difficulty  of 
employing,  in  the  recitation-room,  the  expository  mode 
of  instruction,  without  encroaching  too  far  upon  the 
exercise  proper  to  the  hour,  is  enough  in  itself  to  re 
press  in  the  teacher  the  teaching  spirit,  and  to  cause  him 
constantly  to  tend  to  the  level  of  the  mere  repetiteur. 
How  dangerously  is  this  tendency  increased,  by  the  fact 
that  its  downward  direction  coincides  precisely  with 
that  in  which  the  native  love  of  ease  is  perpetually  drag 
ging  all  mankind !  For  this  great  evil  there  is  but  one 
antagonistic  influence  which  can  be  of  any  avail :  it  is 
that  of  a  living,  fervent,  zeal  in  his  wofk,  existing  in  the 
instructor  himself;  a  zeal,  not  in  the  work  of  conducting 


LETTER.  27 

recitations,  as  the  remark  might  seem  to  imply,  but 
which  would  be  ridiculous, — a  zeal  rather  in,  the  higher 
and  nobler  work  of  training  immortal  minds  to  vioror, 

o  O         / 

and  capacitating  them  for  usefulness.  The  college  officer, 
therefore,  of  the  present  day,  whose  interest  in  his  pro 
fession  is  bounded  by  the  fact,  certainly  uninspiring, 
however  important  to  himself,  that  it  secures  to  him  the 
means  of  living,  is  in  imminent  danger  of  lapsing  into  a 
mere  automaton. 

The  drift  of  the  foregoing  observations  will  now  be 
perceived.  In  the  higher  department  of  the  University, 
it  is  proposed  to  employ  the  plan  of  recitation  only  to  a 
limited  extent ;  and  in  so  far  as  this  plan  is  recommend 
ed  at  all,  it  is  not  that  it  may  serve  as  a  coercive  power 
impelling  the  student  to  diligence,  but  rather  that  the 
instructor  himself  may  be  enabled  by  its  aid  to  discover 
in  what  direction  his  efforts  are  most  needed.  This  he 
may  do,  either  by  recitations  held  at  stated  times  regu 
larly  recurring,  or  by  similar  exercises  appointed  at  his 
own  discretion,  as  he  may  consider  them  to  be  needed. 

The  proposition  is,  however,  to  give  instruction  in 
this  department  mainly  by  oral  exposition  on  the  part 
of  the  teacher.  According  to  this  plan,  if  the  teacher 
possesses  any  knowledge  on  the  subject  of  study  which 
is  not  contained  in  the  books  of  the  course,  or  not  easily 
accessible  to  the  student,  or  if  the  sources  from  which 
such  knowledge  may  be  obtained  are  above  the  present 
level  of  the  student's  capacity,  this  knowledge  will  be 
brought  out  and  made  available.  And  if  he  possesses 


28  LETTER. 

any  power  of  clear  analysis,  of  luminous  illustration ; 
if  he  possesses,  as  he  ought,  in  order  to  occupy  fitly  a 
position  of  this  high  responsibility,  that  mastery  over 
his  theme  which  belongs  to  the  man  who  has  ceased  to 
think  of  the  truth  which  he  teaches  as  of  a  something 
found  in  books,  and  of  which  all  that  he  knows  is  knowl 
edge  gathered  at  second-hand ;  but  who  has  indepen 
dently  interrogated  the  sources  of  information  himself, 
and  stands  in  immediate  contact  with  nature  and  with 
thought,  feeling  no  need  of  an  interpreter, — if  this  is  his 
own  intellectual  character,  this  the  degree  of  his  intel 
lectual  cultivation,  and  this  the  comprehensive  scope  of 
his  acquired  resources, — then  his  teachings  will  carry  with 
them  to  the  minds  of  his  hearers  a  fulness  of  satisfaction, 
and  fasten  themselves  there  with  a  permanency  of  im 
pression  such  as  no  amount  of  perusal  of  mere  lifeless 
text-books,  written  down  to  the  level  of  their  immediate 
attainments,  no  matter  how  earnestly  attentive,  or  how 
conscientiously  faithful  the  perusal  may  be,  can  ever 
produce. 

Not  that  from  such  a  system  of  instruction,  books 
are  to  be  discarded.  By  no  means.  Not  only  will  the 
necessity  of  books  continue  to  be  as  absolutely  impera 
tive  as  under  any  system  whatever  of  recitation  from  a 
text ;  but  the  multiplication  of  books  will  be  an  inevita 
ble  consequence.  For  while  the  instructor  will  aim  to 
expound  all  that  relates  to  theory  or  doctrine,  he  will 
not  embarrass  his  class-room  with  the  lumber  of  innu 
merable  applications,  which,  however  useful  they  may 


LETTER.  29 

be,  are  the  proper  labor  of  the  student  himself  in  his 
solitary  study ;  neither,  in  regard  to  simple  matters  of 
plain  fact,  of  which  a  multitude  are  strewn  along  the 
path  of  every  walk  in  science,  will  he  consider  it  expe 
dient  to  occupy  time  in  stating  in  minute  detail  what 
can  be  found  in  every  book,  and  what  needs  but  to  be 
read  once  to  be  understood.  For  their  necessary  enlight 
enment  in  matters  such  as  these,  he  will  refer  his  pupils 
to  certain  selected  authors,  of  which  he  will  designate 
the  portions  which  require  their  attention  with  as  much 
regularity  as  if  they  were  to  be  subjected  to  examina 
tion  upon  the  same  passages.  But  he  will  not  always 
confine  himself  to  one  author,  nor  always  give  the  same 
author  preference  ;  for  his  business  is  to  teach  a  subject 
and  not  a  book  ;  and  books,  therefore,  are  not  his  guides 
but  his  helps.  Nor  will  the  student  find  it  quite  a  prac 
ticable  thing  to  disregard  the  recommendations  thus 
made,  or  to  neglect  the  perusal,  or  rather  severe  study, 
of  the  books  designated ;  for  he  will  shortly  discover 
that  this  study  is  indispensable  to  his  understanding  and 
properly  profiting  by  the  instructions  of  his  own  imme 
diate  teacher. 

The  two  salient  merits  of  the  method  of  instruction 
here  proposed,  then,  for  the  class  of  learners  contem 
plated,  are  first,  that  it  both  permits  and  compels  the 
teacher  to  be  a  teacher;  and  neither  constrains  nor 
allows  him  to  sink  into  inactivity,  nor  to  content  him 
self  with  presiding  in  empty  state  over  an  exercise  to 
which  he  is  conscious  of  contributing  nothing  valuable  : 


30  LETTER. 

and  secondly,  that  it  makes  knowledge  itself,  and  not  the 
substance  of  any  treatise  upon  knowledge,  not  any  arti 
ficial  form  into  which  knowledge  has  been  thrown,  the 
immediate  subject  of  teaching. 

In  the  actual  execution  of  the  plan  in  this  Univer 
sity,  it  is  proposed  to  introduce  a  feature  somewhat 
peculiar,  which  appears  to  be  well  adapted  to  increase 
its  usefulness.  This  is  to  afford  to  the  members  of  the 
class  pursuing  their  studies  in  any  school,  the  opportu 
nity,  after  the  instructor  shall  have  completed  the  ex 
position  of  the  topic  of  the  day,  to  bring  up  for  re-ex 
amination  points  which  still  remain  to  them  obscure,  or 
to  ask  further  information  in  regard  to  matters  which 
may  not  have  been  fully  explained.  This  is,  in  fact,  to 
inaugurate  a  species  of  recitation  in  which  the  student 
and  teacher  reverse  the  positions  usual  in  this  exercise. 
The  student  questions ;  the  teacher  replies.  The  stu 
dent  should  even  be  permitted,  if  he  pleases,  in  cases 
which  admit  of  argument,  to  take  issue  with  his  instruc 
tor,  and  to  present  his  reasons  for  his  opinions.  Discus 
sion  will  be  advantageous  to  both  parties,  and  will  keep 
more  actively  alive  the  interest  felt  by  the  class  in  the 
subject  of  study.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that, 
by  the  encouragement  of  the  usages  here  recommended, 
it  is  not  intended  in  any  manner  to  countenance  the 
introduction  of  trivial  or  frivolous  questions ;  but  on 
the  other  hand,  supposing  the  practice  to  be  carried  out 
with  a  sincere  desire  on  the  part  of  the  learner  to  profit, 
and  on  the  part  of  the  instructor  to  bestow  benefit,  it 


LETTER.  3} 

is  one  of  which  the  possible  utility  is  too  obvious  to 
require  to  be  enforced  by  argument. 

Nothing  has  thus  far  been  said  in  regard  to  the  du 
ration  proper  to  be  given  to  the  successive  courses  of 
sub-graduate  and  post-graduate  study.  That  is  a  sub 
ject  which  may  perhaps  with  propriety  be  left  for  the 
independent  consideration  and  determination  of  the 
Board  of  Trustees.  Columbia  College,  New  York, 
under  its  new  organization,  proposes  to  confer  the  de 
gree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts  at  the  end  of  three  years  of 
study ;  and  that  of  Master  of  Arts,  after  two  years  addi 
tional.  Brown  University  has  fixed  the  course  for  the 
degree  of  Bachelor  of  Philosophy  at  three  years ;  while 
that  for  Bachelor  of  Arts  is  suffered  still  to  extend  to 
four  years.  In  the  University  of  Virginia,  degrees  are 
conferred  only  on  proficiency,  whatever  be  the  time  of 
study  necessary  to  secure  the  necessary  qualification; 
but  in  that  institution,  it  is  believed  that  a  faithful 
student  can  attain  the  Bachelor's  degree  in  three  years, 
and  the  Master's  in  four  or  five.  Whatever  be  the 
lengths  of  time  fixed  on  as  proper  for  the  case  of  this 
University,  it  is  clearly  expedient  that  here,  as  at  the 
University  of  Virginia,  proficiency  and  not  a  determi 
nate  period  of  residence,  should  be  made  the  test  of 
fitness  for  the  honor  of  graduation;  and  that  the  de 
gree  of  proficiency  of  candidates  should  not  be  a  mere 
matter  of  inference  from  the  recorded  results  of  their 
daily  performances, — a  criterion  fallacious  in  the  ex- 


32  LETTER. 

trema, — but  should  be  directly  ascertained  at  the  close 
of  the  course,  by  rigid  written  examinations. 

Were  the  University  of  Mississippi  an  institution 
having  no  higher  a  duty  to  discharge  than  that  which  is 
immediately  visible,  and  no  higher  destiny  to  fulfil 
than  that  which  she  is  fulfilling  to-day,  the  undersigned 
might  at  this  point  feel  at  liberty  to  lay  down  his  pen. 
But  with  a  deep  conviction  pressing  upon  his  mind  that 
this  is  not  the  case,  he  feels  irresistibly  impelled  to  tres 
pass  still  further  upon  your  attention. 

The  considerations  already  presented  are  believed, 
indeed,  to  be  sufficient  in  themselves  to  show  the  expe 
diency  of  the  change  which  it  is  the  object  of  this  com 
munication  to  propose.  The  oppressiveness  of  the  ex 
isting  system,  the  fallacious  promise  which  it  holds  out 
to  the  learner  and  the  public,  of  thorough  instruction  in 
twenty  subjects  within  a  time  scarcely  adequate  to  the 
proper  mastery  of  one,  and  the  degree  to  which  these 
things  impair  the  efficiency  of  the  system  itself  for  the 
purposes  contemplated  in  its  theory,  but  which  in  prac 
tice,  have  been  almost  left  out  of  sight,  constitute  an 
overwhelming  mass  of  argument  in  favor  of  a  measure 
doubly  recommended,  at  the  same  time,  by  its  fitness  at 
once  to  afford  relief  and  to  secure  a  higher  order  of 
mental  culture.  But  while  these  anticipated  benefits 
are  thus  sufficient  to  justify  and  even  to  demand  the 
adoption  of  the  measure  recommended,  and  while  there 
fore  the  advisability  of  the  measure  is  placed  distinctly 


LETTER.  33 

upon  the  basis  of  its  own  independent  merits,  the  under 
signed  does  not  hesitate  candidly  to  avow  that  the 
change  proposed  is  a  project  especially  favorite  with 
him,  and  that  its  inauguration,  should  it  receive  your 
sanction,  will  be  regarded  by  him  with  especial  satisfac 
tion,  for  a  reason  entirely  distinct  from  the  former — the 
consideration  that  the  University,  in  conforming  itself 
to  the  new  plan  of  organization,  will  take  a  first  decided 
step  in  the  direction  of  that  higher  development  toward 
which  its  relations  to  the  general  educational  system  of 
the  State,  and  its  peculiarly  responsible  position  in  refer 
ence  to  the  State  itself — not  only  as  the  nursery  of  the 
unfolding  intellect  of  her  sons,  but  as  the  most  promi 
nent  representative  of  her  intellectual  character  and  the 
most  significant  index  of  her  grade  in  the  world  of 
letters  and  science — bind  it  continually  to  look ;  and 
toward  which  all  who  are  in  any  manner,  directly  or 
remotely,  connected  with  its  management,  its  Faculty, 
its  Board  of  Trustees,  the  Legislature  of  the  State,  and 
the  people  of  the  State  themselves,  ought  constantly,  by 
every  stimulating  influence  at  their  command,  to  impel 
it  to  advance.  In  every  act  of  legislation  affecting  the 
operations  of  an  institution  destined,  like  this,  to  exert 
forever  an  influence  incalculably  vast  over  all  the  future 
of  a  great  and  powerful  people,  destined  at  some  coming 
and  not  very  distant  period  to  do  more  than  any  other 
single  cause — nay  more  than  all  other  single  causes  com 
bined — to  stamp  upon  the  intellectual  character  of  Mis 
sissippi  the  impress  it  is  to  wear,  to  determine  the 
3 


34  1    UNIVERSITY"  1      LETTER. 


respectability  "of  tlic  State  in  the  eyes  of  mankind,  to 
stimulate  her  industry,  to  multiply  the  sources  of  her 
material  wealth,  to  elevate  and  purify  the  tastes  of  her 
people,  to  enlarge  their  capacities  for  happiness,  and 
to  enable  them  to  fill  up  those  capacities  by  supplying 
them  with  continually  growing  means  of  rational  enjoy 
ment — in  every  act  affecting  the  operations  of  such  an 
institution,  it  is  not  merely  the  exigencies  of  the  present 
which  are  to  be  regarded ;  but  it  is  that  grave  and 
weighty  mission  whose  responsibilities  extend  far  for 
ward  into  the  future,  and  whose  influences  are  to  be  felt 
so  long  as  the  State  of  Mississippi  shall  have  a  place 
upon  the  map  of  the  world — this ^  it  is  above  all  things 
which  is  to  enter  into  and  give  its  color  to  the  decision 
of  every  important  question  which  the  governing  body 
is  called  on  to  decide. 

Nor  let  it  be  said  that  the  magnitude  or  the  perma 
nence  of  the  influence  thus  prospectively  ascribed  to  the 
University  is  exaggerated.  The  University  is  to  be  the 
prime  mover  of  the  entire  educational  system  of  the  State. 
The  character  of  every  school,  from  the  highest  to  the 
lowest,  within  our  borders,  is  to  be  determined  ultimately 
by  the  respectability  or  the  inferiority  of  this.  Though 
it  is  true  that  but  a  fraction  of  the  people  will  receive 
their  personal  instruction  within  the  University  halls, 
yet  all,  without  exception,  will  be  partakers  of  the 
benefits  of  which  the  University  is  to  be  the  fountain- 
head  and  the  central  source.  If  the  institution  does 
not  immediately  teach  the  entire  people,  it  will  teach 


L  E  T  T  ?]  R  .  35 

their  'teachers ;  or,  what  is  equivalent  to  this,  it  will 
force  every  instructor  whom  it  does  not  itself  instruct, 
to  come  up  to  the  standard  it  prescribes,  on  penalty  of 
being  else  driven  from  the  educational  field. 

Thus  the  University  is  destined  in  coining  time  to 
act,  invisibly  it  may  be  sometimes,  but  always  powerfully, 
in  every  county,  and  district,  and  neighborhood  in  the 
State ;  even  as  already  in  its  infancy,  its  influence  is  be 
ginning,  in  one  quarter  and  another,  to  be  perceptibly 
.  marked,  elevating  the  character  arid  improving  the  effi- 
'  ciency  of  all  other  schools.  For  this  influence  cannot 
be  confined  within  limits,  nor  restricted  to  any  particular 
grade  of  educational  agency.  It  will  comprehend  no 
less  those  common  schools,  in  which  the  children  of  all 
the  people  receive  the  first  elements  of  their  instruction, 
than  those  more  pretending  seminaries  in  which  science 
and  classical  learning  are  placed  within  the  reach  of  the 
aspiring  student ;  or  the  colleges  which  professedly  plant 
themselves  upon  its  own  level.  This  immense,  and  in 
the  inevitable  tendencies  of  things,  hereafter  to  become 
all-controlling,  power  over  the  whole  educational  system 
of  a  populous  State,  imparting  its  tone  and  color  to  the 
instruction  given  in  every  town,  and  village,  and  neigh 
borhood,  and  household,  is  one  of  the  possession  of 
which  the  University  cannot  divest  itself  if  it  would, 
and  in  regard  to  the  exercises  of  which  it  cannot  be  per. 
mitted  to  choose  or  to  refuse.  As  the  honorable  pre 
eminence  which  it  implies  has  been  neither  usurped  nor 
arrogated,  so  the  responsibilities  which  it  involves  can 


36  LETTER. 

neither  be  declined  or  shaken  off.     With  a  conviction 
of  this  important  truth,  every  member  of  the  enlighten 
ed  body  of  Trustees  which  at  present  presides  over  its 
interests  and  controls   its   destinies,  is   believed  to  be 
deeply  penetrated.     And  whenever  any  important  meas 
ure  is  originated  within  that  body  itself,  or  is  proposed 
to  the  same  body  from  without,  of  which  the  effect  may 
be  to  modify  permanently  the  modes  in  which  the  Uni 
versity  discharges  its  functions,  it  is  believed  that  a  no 
less  inquiring  and  anxious  attention  will  be  given  to  the 
consequences  which  the  proposed  innovation  may  entail 
for  good  or  for  ill  upon  that  distant  future  which  the 
action  or  non-action  of  to-day  must  affect,  than  to  the 
advantages  or  disadvantages  which  may  promise  to  be 
its  immediate  results. 

Therefore  it  is  that  the  undersigned  feels  it  to  be  a 
duty,  to  insist  strongly  upon  the  view  that  the  measure 
proposed  herein  for  the  deliberation  of  the  Board  is  one 
which  is  demanded  in  order  to  the  just  fulfilment*  of 
that  high  responsibility  which  rests  upon  the  University, 
in  consequence  of  its  peculiar  relations  to  the  educa 
tional  system  of  the  State.  The  institution  would  be 
faithless  to  its  trust,  if  its  tendencies  were  not  always  up 
ward.  The  hour  has  arrived  in  which  it  is  proper  and 
fitting  that  it  should  take,  so  far  as  its  visible  arrange 
ments  and  instrumentalities  are  concerned,  the  first  up 
ward  step.  That  it  has  been,  internally  and  inconspicu. 
ously  to  the  public  eye,  heretofore  steadily  advancing  in 
improvement  from  year  to  year,  is  at  least  toj  be  hoped 


LETTER.  37 

and  is  certainly  believed.  The  time  has  come  when, 
ceasing  to  be  content  with  improving  what  it  is,  it  shall 
cultivate  the  nobler  ambition  which  aims  actually  to  be 
something  more  than  it  is — something  more  comprehen 
sive  in  its  scope — something  more  far-reaching  in  its 
purposes.  Not  that  it  should  abandon  the  ground  it 
at  present  occupies,  or  cease  to  discharge  its  present 
functions.  The  position  which  it  actually  holds  it 
should  still  maintain  substantially  unaltered  ;  and  the 
system  of  instruction  in  operation  within  its  walls  to 
day,  should  still  be  preserved  unchanged,  except  in 
what  concerns  its  more  energetic  prosecution,  and  its 
improved  efficiency. 

But  what  is  the  University  of  to-day  ?  What  but  a 
training  school  for  immature  minds — impaired,  indeed, 
in  its  usefulness  for  this  purpose  by  the  very  attempt  to 
accomplish,  along  with  it,  other  and  entirely  incom 
patible  objects  ?  If  the  people  suppose  that  this  is  a 
place  to  make  practical  men,  or  learned  men,  or  pro 
foundly  scientific?  men — if  they  suppose  that  it  is  within 
the  reach  of  possibility  for  the  University,  under  the 
existing  system,  to  turn  out  accomplished  engineers,  or 
expert  chemists,  or  proficient  astronomers,  or  profound 
philosophers,  or  even  finished  scholars — we  know  very 
well  that  they  are  deceived.  Not  that  this  institution 
falls  any  farther  short  of  accomplishing  these  ends,  or 
fails  any  more  signally  to  meet  this  popular  impression, 
than  other  American  colleges ;  but  that  the  power  to 
do  these  things  seems,  by  force  of  a  general  hallucina- 


38  LETTER. 

tion,  to  be  attributed  to  colleges  as  a  class,  while,  in 
point  of  fact,  it  does  not  actually  exist  in  any  one  of  the 
whole  number.  At  least,  if  any  exception  is  to  be 
made  from  this  remark,  it  can  only  be  of  those  which 
have  already  introduced  into  their  plan  of  organization, 
some  modification  substantially  like  that  which  it  is  pro 
posed  to-day  to  introduce  into  the  University  of  Mis 
sissippi. 

This  University  is,  then,  at  this  time  but  a  school 
for  youth  of  minds  still  immature.  What  this  class  of 
learners  require  is  mental  discipline,  mental  culture, 
mental  development, — not  the  obtrusion  of  a  flood  of 
information,  no  matter  how  valuable,  in  regard  to  every 
subject  of  human  knowledge,  upon  minds  unprepared 
to  receive  it,  or  to  store  it  systematically  away,  or^o 
turn  it  to  the  uses  to  which  it  is  capable  of  being 
applied.  Why  should  we  not,  while  engaged  in  this 
great  preliminary  work  of  education,  adopt  the  only 
course  which  is  truly  efficient,  that  of  confining  to  it  our 
entire  and  exclusive  attention.  If  education  has  really 
two  great  and  broadly  distinguished  functions  to  fulfil 
—to  operate  on  the  mind  itself,  and  to  furnish  it  with 
material  for  its  own  future  operations — to  draw  out  or 
educe  its  faculties,  and  to  supply  the  same  faculties  with 
the  aliment  which  is  to  maintain  their  subsequent  vigor 
— and  if  nature  herself  points  out  the  order  in  which 
these  functions  should  succeed  each  other,  why  should 
we  disregard  her  obvious  indications,  or  neglect  to 
conform  our  practice  as  well  to  the  dictates  of  common 


LETTER.  39 

sense  as  to  the  principles  of  a  sound  philosophy?  If  we 
admit  the  justice  of  this  reasoning,  why  should  we 
hesitate  to  draw  a  distinct  line  of  division  between  the 
period  devoted  to  the  first  great  educational  end,  and 
that  allotted  to  the  second  \  Even  should  we  propose 
to  ourselves  to  do  no  more  than  we  have  hitherto  done 
in  behalf  of  positive  learning  or  positive  science,  can  any 
good  reason  be  assigned  why  we  should  scruple  to  say, 
it  is  here  that  the  first  of  our  labors  ceases,  and  here 
that  the  second  begins?  No  reason  at  all,  good  or 
otherwise,  for  not  doing  this,  can  exist,  unless  it  be  that 
the  moment  we  make  such  an  avowal,  we  shall  feel  our 
selves  bound  to  enter  upon  the  second  part  of  our  task 
with  the  purpose,  with  the  arrangements,  and  with  the 
instrumentalities,  which  shall  render  its  results,  what 
they  are  far  enough  from  being  now,  a  substantial 
reality.  We  shall  feel  ourselves  bound,  in  short,  to  rise 
above  the  grade  of  the  German  gymnasium — which  is 
precisely  our  grade  of  to-day — aoid  to  assume,  by  ap 
proaches  which  the  force  of  circumstances  may  indeed 
make  gradual,  but  which  must  be  no  less  steady  and 
persevering,  the  character  of  the  German  university. 

But  this  is  precisely  the  thing  which,  in  the  view  of 
the  undersigned,  it  is  our  manifest  duty  to  do.  It  is  not 
every  college,  indeed,  upon  which  such  an  obligation 
rests,  any  more  than  it  would  be  the  duty  of  every 
gymnasium  in  Germany  to  aspire  to  transform  itself  into 
a  university.  It  is  by  no  means  necessary  that  the 
schools  for  what  is  called  supplementary  education— 


40  L  E  T  T  E  E  . 

schools  which  open  up  to  all  comers  the  way  to  the 
most  thorough  attainments  in  each  special  department  of 
letters  and  science — should  be  as  numerous  as  the  col 
leges.  And  even  if  it  were  so,  it  is  manifestly  impossible 
that  the  colleges  of  this  country  should  become  generally 
universities.  In  order  that  an  institution  of  the  highest 
learning  may  exist  at  all,  the  first  of  all  necessities  is  an 
ample  endowment.  There  is  not  a  college  in  the  whole 
country  which  can  provide  itself  with  books,  and  instru 
ments,  and  collections  in  natural  science,  and  all  the 
other  appliances  essential  to  thorough  instruction,  with 
no  resources  beyond  the  fees  paid  in  by  students  for 
their  tuition.  There  is  not  one  which  can  even  pay  its 
officers  for  their  services,  unless  it  be  upon  a  scale  which 
starves  rather  than  compensates,  if  it  possess  no  better 
reliance  than  this.  The  higher  education  in  this  country, 
in  the  words  of  Dr.  Wayland,  is  the  cheapest  of  all  com 
modities  in  the  market.  •  It  is  thrown,  in  fact,  into  the 
market  so  far  below  its  cost,  that  it  may,  with  all  but 
literal  truth,  be  said  to  be  given  away.  There  is  no 
thing  in  this,  indeed,  to  be  regretted,  so  long  as  the 
quality  of  the  education  thus  furnished  is  not  vitiated  by 
its  cheapness.  There  would  be  nothing  to  be  regretted, 
if  it  were  not  only  almost,  but  absolutely  and  altogether 
given  away.  For  this  would  be  only  for  a  community 
to  supply  one  of  its  own  indispensable  necessities  after 
the  cheapest  manner.  Neither  would  the  wealth  ap 
parently  consumed  in  the  operation  be  by  any  means 
sunk  or  lost.  The  process  is  simply  a  transfer  of  a  given 


LETTER.  41 

value  from  the  benefactor — the  college  corporation  or 
the  State — to  the  beneficiary,  who  is  the  student ;  and 
the  value  transferred  is  at  the  same  time  transformed 
into  a  more  useful  shape :  from  inert  it  is  converted  into 
living  gold.  Among  all  the  investments  which  it  ever 
entered  into  the  heart  of  the  most  greedy  capitalist  to 
conceive,  there  is  none  so  productive  as  this.  Nature 
only  has  provided  any  thing  like  it,  in  the  case  in  which 
she  returns,  for  the  seed  committed  to  her  bosom,  some 
an  hundred  fold,  some  sixty,  and  some  thirty. 

There  would  be  nothing  to  be  regretted,  if  not  only 
the  higher  education,  but  if  all  education,  in  all  its 
grades,  were  given  away ;  by  which,  of  course,  nothing 
can  be  meant  but  that  it  should  be  furnished  to  all  the 
people  at  the  expense  of  all  the  people.  For  this  would 
only  be  to  alter  the  mode  of  making  an  investment, 
which  ought,  as  no  sensible  man  will  pretend  to  deny, 
by  all  means  to  be  made.  The  people  ought  to  be  edu 
cated  ;  and  by  whatever  system  this  is  done,  the  people 
must  ultimately  pay  for  their  own  education.  They  pay 
at  present  irregularly,  unsystematically,  and  unequally; 
and  the  thing  is  done  ill.  They  might  pay  according 
to  some  just  and  equal  rule ;  and  then,  all  education, 
from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  being  controlled  by  the 
State  itself,  and  subjected  to  one  uniform,  consistent,  and 
enlightened  method,  it  would  be  done  well,  and  the 
same  opportunities  would  be  extended  equally  to  every 
citizen. 

But  this  matter  is   aside  from   the  purpose  of  the 


42  LETTER. 

present  communication.  It  will  be  observed  that  the 
undersigned  regards  the  cheapness  of  the  higher  educa 
tion  as  a  gratifying  circumstance,  only  with  the  reserve 
of  an  important  proviso,  that  the  quality  of  the  education 
thus  furnished  shall  not  be  vitiated  by  its  cheapness. 

It  is  much  to  be  apprehended,  however,  that  the 
prejudicial  consequence  here  hinted  at,  is  too  often  a 
reality.  If  it  is  true  that,  in  the  present  stage  of  the 
world's  advancement,  science  cannot  be  properly  taught 
without  costly  apparatus  ;  if  it  is  true,  also,  that  without 
opportunity  of  access  to  many  books,  without,  in  other 
words,  expensive  libraries,  the  learning  of  instructors 
cannot  be  profound ;  if  it  is  still  further  true  that,  in  the 
educational  field,  as  in  every  other,  high  attainments  and 
brilliant  talents  cannot  be  commanded  unless  they  are 
adequately  compensated, — then  it  is  self-evidently  mani 
fest  that  colleges  of  humble  endowments,  or  of  no  en 
dowments  at  all,  cannot  furnish  to  their  students  educa 
tional  advantages  equal  to  those  offered  by  institutions 
in  this  respect  more  favored.  Without,  however,  for  the 
moment  insisting  upon  this  point,  it  is  safe  at  least  to 
say  that  such  colleges  can  never  rise  to  the  rank  of  uni 
versities  ;  and  it  may  be  added  that  it  is  not  desirable 
that  they  should. 

It  is  nevertheless  a  fact  that  true  universities  are  at 
this  moment  among  the  most  urgent  of  the  intellectual 
wants  of  our  country.  And  it  is  an  important  circum 
stance  that  there  is  already  in  existence  a  class  of  colle 
giate  institutions  whose  relations  to  the  municipal  au- 


LETTER.  43 

thorities   of  the  States  within    which  they  exist  point 
them  out  as  the  agencies  most  fit  to  supply  this  want. 
In  addition  to  this,  the  resources  of  these  institutions 
are  also,  in  some  instances  at  least,  already  adequate  to 
the  demand  which  the  imposition  upon    them    of  this 
higher  function  would   create.     This  is   especially   the 
case  with  the  University  of  Mississippi,  the  accumulated 
proceeds  of  whose  original  munificent  endowment  by  the 
Congress   of  the  United   States,  were  stated  by   Gov. 
McRae,  in  a  message  to  the  Legislature  two  years  ago, 
at  more  than  one  million  of  dollars.     Of  this  fund,  the 
Legislature,  in  the  original  act  of  charter  creating  the 
University,  committed  to  your  honorable  body  the  ex 
clusive  control.      And  though,  by  a  subsequent  act  of 
legislation,  this  provision  of  the  charter  was  repealed, 
and. the  Legislature  resumed  to  itself  the  control  over 
the  trust,  yet,  whenever  the  necessities  of  the  Univer 
sity  have  required  appropriations,  such  appropriations 
have  always  been  cheerfully  granted,  and  they  may  with 
reasonable  confidence  be  equally  relied  on  for  the  future. 
The  University,  then,  is  amply  provided  with  the  re 
sources  necessary  to  enable  it  satisfactorily  to  discharge 
those  high  responsibilities  which  have  been  pointed  out 
as  properly  resting  upon  it.     For  its  present  operations, 
its  immediate  income  is  sufficient.     It  is  only  necessary 
that  the  law  of  1856  be  permanently  extended — and  this 
must  be  done,  in  any  event,  if  the  Legislature  would  not 
thrust   down   the   institution   below   its   present   level 
instead  of  permitting  it  to  rise — and  it  is  hardly  proba- 


44  LETTER. 

ble  that  further  drafts  upon  the  fund  will  be  needed 
within  the  lifetime  of  the  present  generation.  For  the 
generations  which  are  to  succeed,  wre  may  safely  trust 
to  the  enlightened  intelligence  of  the  Legislatures  into 
whose  hands  the  guardianship  of  this  inestimably  impor 
tant  trust  shall  then  devolve. 

From  what  has  been  said,  the  inference  follows  that 
the  State  universities  of  the  Union  occupy  the  position 
and  possess  generally  the  resources  which  make  it  both 
fit  and  practicable  for  them  to  supply  the  great  educa 
tional  want  which  has  just  been  signalized.  Some  of 
them,  among  which  the  University  of  Michigan  deserves 
honorable  mention,  have  from  the  beginning  recognized 
their  obligation  in  this  respect ;  and  without  discarding, 
or  in  any  important  particular  modifying,  the  collegiate 
feature  common  to  all  institutions  of  the  same  grade, 
have  organized  themselves  under  the  visible  form  of 
true  universities. 

Thus  far  in  this  argument,  the  want  of  institutions  of 
a  higher  than  merely  collegiate  grade  has  been  assumed 
and  asserted  as  an  unquestionable  fact.  The  assertion 
may  not,  nevertheless,  be  suffered  to  pass  without 
question ;  and  accordingly  there  can  be  no  impropriety 
in  looking  for  a  moment  into  the  evidence  on  which  it 
rests.  Now,  the  existence  of  the  want  as  a  reality  is 
made  evident  by  the  earnest  and  urgent  demand,  spoken 
of  earlier  in  this  communication,  which  has  been,  for 
the  last  thirty  or  forty  years,  so  extensively  heard,  for 
something  or  other  which  the  existing  educational  sys- 


LETTER.  45 

tern  does  not  supply.  This  demand,  so  far  as  it  Las  pro 
ceeded  from  scholars  and  men  of  science,  has  taken  the 
specific  form  of  a  demand  for  universities  called  by  that 
name;  because  scholars  and  men  of  science  have  been 
.able  to  perceive  distinctly  that  the  university  was  the 
precise  thing  needed  to  satisfy  the  want.  But  when  it 
has  come  from  the  people — and  from  the  people  it  has 
come  very  steadily  for  at  least  a  quarter  of  a  century- 
it  has  been,  not  for  the  university  by  name,  but  for  new 
schools  of  some  vaguely  conceived  description ;  for  col 
leges  to  be  broken  up  and  destroyed  in  all  that  regards 
the  province  of  their  past  usefulness,  and  built  up  anew 
upon  some  visionary  plan  and  according  to  some  imprac 
ticable  theory  ;  for  schools  of  science  as  applied  to  the 
arts  of  construction,  of  agriculture,  of  manufactures  and 
every  thing  useful  to  mankind,  but  chiefly  things  useful 
according  to  that  literal  sense  which  confounds  utility 
with  increase  of  wealth ;  for  schools,  in  short,  which 
should  do  what  the  collegiate  schools  do  not  do,  and 
what  we  know  that  it  is  not  necessary  or  even  proper 
that  they  should  do — prepare  men,  so  far  as  schools  can 
prepare  them,  to  take  directly  hold  of  the  real  business 
of  life.  No  one  is  ignorant  that  this  demand  has  exist 
ed  for  a  period  at  least  as  long  as  asserted  ;  that  at  times 
it  has  been  vociferous  and  violent ;  or  that,  not  content 
with  insisting  on  the  creation  of  new  schools  to  accom 
plish  the  ends  desired,  it  has  turned  occasionally,  almost 
in  a  spirit  of  vindictive  destructiveness,  upon  the  old, 
because  they  did  not  accomplish  those  same  ends. 


46  LETTER. 

These  demands,  the  undersigned  ventures  to  assert, 
are  evidence  of  the  want  of  higher  universities.  Not 
because  they  ask  for  the  university ;  not  because  their 
authors,  if  the  university  were  proposed  to  them  as  a  rem 
edy,  would  be  likely  to  accept  it ;  but  because  the  pres 
ent  inconvenience  which  is  so  sensibly  felt,  is  one  which 
the  university  would  remove,  though  those  who  feel  it  do 
not  perceive  how.  And  why  not  ?  Because  first,  looking 
at  universities  as  they  have  been  in  past  centuries,  as  the 
repositories  of  literary  lore,  as  the  resorts  of  scholars  deal 
ing  with  abstractions,  as  the  burrowing  places  of  book 
worms  eating  out  the  hearts  of  the  black-letter  volumes 
of  the  sixteenth  century  or  of  the  manuscripts  of  the 
sixth,  as  the  unchallenged  domain  of  grammarians  and 
lexicographers,  of  commentators  upon  Aristotle  and  Long- 
inus,  ingenious  speculators  upon  the  mysteries  of  the  di- 
gamma,  and  indefatigable  elaborators  of  ethical  and  logi 
cal  niceties,  they  picture  them  in  their  imaginations,  even 
to  this  hour,  as  solemn  and  shadowy  retreats,  still  smell 
ing  of  the  dust  and  mould  of  antiquity,  where  philol 
ogy,  linguistic  philosophy,  and  the  sublimer  metaphysics 
brood,  like  the  pensive  owl  in  Gray's  churchyard  turret, 
with  none  to 

"  Molest  their  ancient  solitary  reign." 

But  this  conception  is  entirely  erroneous.  The  Uni 
versity,  in  the  sense  in  which  the  name  is  now  generally 
received,  no  matter  what  may  have  been  its  original 
acceptation,  is  TJniversitas  Scientiarum ;  it  is,  in  other 


LETTER.  47 

words,  an  institution  in  which  the  highest  learning  of  its 
day  is  taught  in  every  walk  of  human  knowledge.  When 
classical  learning,  philosophy,  and  logic,  were  subjects  of 
the  highest  interest  in  human  estimation,  it  is  not  surpri 
sing  that  the  character  of  university  teaching  should  have 
been  principally  determined  by  them.  But  inasmuch  as, 
at  the  present  day,  physical  science  has  attained  a  posi 
tion  of  actual  dignity  immeasurably  higher  than  it  then 
enjoyed,  and  as  its  useful  applications  have  become  almost 
endlessly  more  numerous  and  varied,  the  university  of  to 
day  would  fail  to  be  what  its  name  imports,  if  it  did  not 
assign  a  corresponding  prominence  to  these  subjects, — 
subjects,  be  it  observed,  which  happen  to  be  the  same 
for  which  the  agitators  we  have  been  speaking  of  demand 
that  a  special  provision  of  special  schools  shall  be 
made. 

There  is,  however,  a  second  class  of  agitators,  who, 
while  admitting  the  justice  of  the  foregoing  representa 
tion,  are  not  disposed  to  accept  the  university  as  a  rem 
edy  for  the  inconvenience  which  they  suffer,  because, 
while  it  gives  them  all  that  they  demand,  it  gives  them 
at  the  same  time  much  more — much  for  which  they  do 
not  ask,  and  for  which  they  do  not  care.  They  fear  so 
great  a  project  as  the  creation  of  an  institution  professing 
and  really  preparing  itself  to  teach  every  thing  embraced 
in  the  entire  circle  of  human  knowledge.  They  fear  that, 
in  attempting  this,  they  shall  attempt  what  is  beyond 
their  means ;  and  that  by  grasping  too  much,  they  shall 
lose  every  thing.  It  is  believed  that  all  this  class  of  per- 


48  LETTER. 

sons,  if  they  rightly  interpret  our  views,  will  find  that 
we  are  entirely  in  accordance  with  them,  and  they  with 
us.  For  no  such  visionary  scheme  is  entertained  by  any 
one  connected  with  this  institution,  as  that  of  creating 
here  in  a  day,  a  university  complete  in  all  the  many- 
faced  aspects  of  a  repository  of  universal  truth,  and  a 
dispenser  of  universal  knowledge.  What  is  aimed  at, 
what  is  recommended,  is  only,  as  already  stated,  to  take 
a  first  step  in  the  right  direction — a  step  which  shall,  in 
deed,  ultimately  conduct  to  the  fulfilment  of  the  great 
idea,  but  w^hich  shall  not  be  itself  the  fulfilment — a  step 
which  will  mark  only  the  beginning  of  a  progress,  in 
which  advancing  only  as  the  growing  intelligence  and 
increasing  wants  of  the  people  of  the  State  shall  urge 
it,  the  University  of  Mississippi  may,  to  the  eyes  of  a 
future  generation,  at  length  present  the  lustrous  specta 
cle  which  the  comprehensive  idea  of  a  true  university 
implies. 

There  is,  however,  still  another  class  of  persons, 
whose  views  on  this  subject  ought  not  to  be  overlooked, 
though  they  are  a  class  who  do  not  agitate — a  class  who, 
on  the  other  hand,  are  well  enough  satisfied  with  things 
as  they  are,  and  whose  quiet  contentment  results  from 
the  belief  that  the  age  has  no  wants  which  the  colleges 
do  not  or  cannot  supply.  This  class  of  men  fully  admit 
all  that  is  said  of  the  value  of  modern  science ;  but 
then  they  suppose  that  no  better  schools  of  science  than 
the  colleges  are  needed.  Taking  up  the  prospectus  of 
the  college  course  of  study  and  receiving  it  as  true  to 


LETTER.  49 

the  letter,  it  is  not  surprising  that  they  are  led  into 
error.  They  observe  this  prospectus  to  embrace  the 
titles  of  all  the  sciences  whose  usefulness  is  most  ex 
tolled,  to  say  nothing  of  many  others,  such  as  zoology, 
botany,  and  the  remaining  branches  of  natural  history, 
concerning  the  usefulness  of  which  their  notions  are  less 
clear ;  and  resting  on  the  largeness  of  the  promise,  which 
they  accept  as  evidence  of  performance,  they  turn  round 
and  demand  the  use  of  making  any  new  provision  for 
that  which,  according  to  the  showing  of  more  than  a 
hundred  official  publications,  is  abundantly  provided 
for  already.  It  is  believed  that  the  number  of  those 
who  thus  plant  themselves  as  obstructions  in  the  way  of 
the  improvement  of  higher  education  in  America,  is  not 
small.  It  is  believed  that  there  are  even  some  such  in 
our  own  State,  looking  on  with  jealous  eyes,  while 
propositions  are  in  agitation  which  involve  a  higher 
development  within  the  University  of  Mississippi.  Why 
should  there  not  be  multitudes  of  this  description  every 
where,  when  it  is  considered  that  more  than  a  hundred 
thousand  of  the  fallacious  promises  of  colleges  in  regard 
to  this  matter  are  annually  sown  broadcast  over  the 
whole  land  !  Let  such  persons  be  only  correctly  in 
formed — let  them  take  the  simple  exhibit  presented  in 
the  earlier  pages  of  this  letter  as  their  guide — and, 
assuredly,  respecting  science,  and  honoring  science, 
and  feeling  as  they  do  the  need  of  a  more  general 
diffusion  of  a  science  which  is  sound  and  solid,  instead  of 

being  unsubstantial  and  shadowy,  they  must,  if  it  were 
4 


50  LETTER. 

* 

only  to  preserve  tlieir  own  consistency,  go  along  with 
those  whom  they  now  regard  as  idle  innovators. 

There  is  still  another  class  whose  views  on  the  sub 
ject  under  consideration  cannot  be  overlooked — a  class 
possibly  the  most  numerous  of  all  those  who  concern 
themselves  about  it ;  or,  if  not  the  most  numerous,  at 
any  rate,  by  far  the  most  impracticable.  Those  are  here 
indicated  who  deny  the  utility  of  high  learning  alto 
gether.  They  are,  of  course,  utilitarians  in  the  technical 
sense  of  that  word.  Let  any  thing  tend  to  promote  the 
bodily  comfort  of  the  race — let  it  furnish  man  with  food, 
or  keep  him  warm,  or  put  a  barrier  between  him  and 
the  weather — and  that  is  a  useful  thing.  By  conse 
quence,  therefore,  science  does,  occasionally,  in  some  of 
its  practical  results,  command  their  partial  consideration ; 
but  for  science  or  learning  as  a  whole,  a  matter  between 
which  and  the  increase  of  wealth  no  connection  in  the 
relation  of  cause  and  effect  is  to  their  minds  obvious, 
they  have  no  respect  whatever.  To  elevate  the  intel 
lectual  man  in  the  scale  of  being,  to  enable  him  to  form 
larger  and  juster  views  than  his  unaided  senses  or  his 
individual,  casual,  and  unsystematic  observation  has 
qualified  him  to  conceive,  of  the  power  and  wisdom  and 
goodness  of  the  great  Architect  of  the  universe,  to  in 
troduce  him  to  a  world  of  enjoyments  growing  out  of 
the  exercise  of  the  godlike  intellect  upon  subjects  of 
beauty,  and  sublimity,  and  deep-seated  and  with  delight 
fully  difficult  effort  laboriously  unraveled  truth, — enjoy 
ments  such  as  doubtless  occupy  cherubic  intelligences  in 


LETTER.  51 

their  rapt  contemplation  of  the  wonderful  works  of 
God, — all  this  the  mere  utilitarian  philosopher,  ever  like 
the  man  with  the  muck-rake  in  Bunyan,  looking  down 
ward,  fails  to  comprehend  and  to  appreciate;  and  all 
arguments  addressed  to  him,  founded  upon  the  consider 
ation,  to  which  he  is  insensible,  that  knowledge  is  valua- 

>  o 

ble  for  its  own  sake,  are  wholly  thrown  away. 

And  yet,  is  there  not  a  dignity  in  knowledge  ?  And 
is  not  intellectual  wealth  a  priceless  treasure,  even  though 
it  be  that  kind  of  intellectual  wealth  which  heaps  no  deli 
cacies  ravished  from  tropical  climes  upon  the  board  of  the 
banqueter,  and  clothes  no  luxurious  limbs  with  the  spoil 
of  the  gorgeous  East  ?  If  this  be  not  true,  then  God 
certainly  has  made  man  in  vain.  The  domestic  animals, 
which  spend  their  contented  lives  in  his  society;  the 
dog,  for  instance,  which  wastes  his  idle  days  untasked  by 
any  toil  save  the  light  labor  of  the  chase,  or  such  other 
trivial  services  as  his  instincts  prompt  him  to  enjoy,  if 
he  be  but  comfortably  housed,  and  sufficiently  fed,  and 
kindly  treated  by  his  master, — is  happy,  quite  as  happy 
as  a  doo-  can  be.  And  the  human  animal,  who  cultivates 

O  ' 

only  his  lower  propensities,  or  at  best,  of  his  mental 
powers  allows  only  the  humbler  to  be  active,  though  he 
may  be  somewhat  more  discriminating  than  the  brute 
in  regard  to  the  degrees  of  luxurious  enjoyment,  yet  he 
too,  when  he  is  warmed  and  filled  and  handsomely 
sheltered,  he  too  is  happy;  but  he  is  no  happier  than 
the  dog.  Surely  we  were  born  for  something  nobler 
than  this  !  Surely  it  is  a  better  and  a  higher  happiness 


52  LETTER. 

which  fills  up  the  capacities  of  our  superior  nature,  when 
developed  by  mental  discipline,  purified  by  moral  cul 
ture,  and  led  to  look  through  nature  up  to  nature's 
God,  it  expands  to  the  sublime  stature  of  that  glorious 
image  in  which  man  was  originally  created  sinless,  and 
makes  the  fallen  mortal  to  appear,  even  yet,  but  a  little 
lower  than  the  angels. 

But,  abandoning  this  line  of  argument,  which,  how 
ever  just,  has  been  experimentally  found  to  be  prac 
tically  useless,  it  is  by  no  means  difficult  to  meet  the 
utilitarian  upon  his  own  ground.  Or  rather,  it  is  dif 
ficult  ;  and  the  difficulty  springs  not  out  of  the  lack  of 
material  for  argument,  but  out  of  the  embarrassment 
which  attends  any  attempt  at  argument  at  all,  upon 
a  subject  with  which  the  'contending  parties  are  not 
equally  familiar;  and  in  some  degree  also  out  of  the 
invariable  propensity  of  the  objector  in  this  case  to 
raise  up  trivial  side-issues,  and  to  resort  to  idle  special 
pleading. 

If,  in  what  follows,  the  undersigned  has  chosen  to 

'  >  o 

confine  himself  chiefly  or  entirely  to  subjects  connected 
with  physical  science,  this  is  only  because  in  the  mea 
sures  projected  for  the  improvement  of  the  University, 
it  is  science  chiefly  wdiich  involves  the  question  of  ex. 
pense. 

Is,  then,  scientific  knowledge  useful  ?  Few  objectors 
will  take  the  broad  ground  of  denying  all  utility  to 
science ;  or  of  denying  utility  to  all  sciences.  Few  will 
hesitate  to  admit  that  every  science  furnishes  some  facts 


LETTER.  53 

that  are  useful.  Even  the  patient  and  diligent  collector 
of  bugs,  and  butterflies,  and  caterpillars,  though  looked 
down  upon  in  a  general  way  by  the  utilitarian  with  an 
amusingly  sublime  loftiness  of  contemptuous  regard,  if 
he  but  intimate  a  belief  that  he  is  upon  the  sure  trace  of 
a  method  of  exterminating  the  insect  scourges  of  the  cot 
ton-field,  is  listened  to  with  respectful,  nay,  with  greedy 
ears,  and  is  elevated  at  once  to  a  position  of  comparative 
dignity.  No  scoffer  at  science,  therefore,  ever  scoffs  at 
the  science,  or  at  the  facts  of  science,  which  he  under 
stands;  understands,  that  is  to  say,  not  as  simple,  isolated 
facts,  a  thing  which  is  generally  easy, — but  understands 
in  all  their  bearings  and  relations,  and  far-reaching  affili 
ations  with  other  facts  with  which  they  have  no  obvious 
or  visible  connection — a  thing  which  is  often  not  easy  at 
all.  And  it  is  because  of  this  difficulty,  because  many 
of  the  most  valuable  of  all  the  facts  which  science  has 
revealed,  present  themselves  to  the  general  mind  with 
no  evidence  of  their  usefulness  about  them, — hence  it  is 
that  the  objectors,  abandoning  every  position  which  per 
mits  to  meet  them  upon  the  basis  of  their  own  knowl 
edge,  resort  to  that  vexatious  system  of  special  plead 
ing  to  which  allusion  has  been  made,  and  demand  that 
we  shall  demonstrate  the  utility  of  detached  truths,  one 
after  another  in  endlessly  provoking  detail,  which  they 
do  not  understand.  The  case  is  even  worse  than  this. 
In  every  branch  of  human  investigation  some  truths 
may  possibly  be  brought  to  light  which  are  merely  inci 
dental  to  the  inquiry,  and  are  without  perceptible  ulte- 


54  LETTER. 

rior  importance :  precisely  as  in  working  a  quarry,  some 
fragments  of  granite  or  marble  may  be  encountered 
which  are  well  enough  as  fragments  of  a  mountain,  but 

O  O  ' 

which  are  hardly  worth  the  trouble  of  carting  away. 
Now,  though  in  science  it  is  hardly  safe  to  say  that  any 
truth,  however  seemingly  insignificant,  may  not  have, 
wrapped  up  within  it,  a  latent  value  which  may  yet  draw 
towards  it  the  admiring  attention  of  all  mankind ;  and 
though  experience  has  shown  that  it  is  becoming,  every 
day  we  live,  less  and  less  safe  to  dogmatize  on  these  sub 
jects,  yet  it  is  not  to  be  denied  that  here  and  there  a 
solitary  fact  may,  by  dint  of  great  diligence,  be  hunted 
up,  which  science  has  made  known  and  recorded,  but  of 
which  we  may  deem  it  no  shame  to  confess  that  we  know 
not  at  this  moment  how  to  put  it  to  use.  Now,  it  is  pre 
cisely  upon  this  unhappy  class  of  facts,  of  immediately 
doubtful  utility  or  of  no  presently  known  utility  at  all, 
that  the  decriers  of  scientific  research  are  always  ready 
to  descend.  And  yet  it  is  a  matter  entirely  notorious  to 
every  one  in  the  slightest  degree  acquainted  with  the 
history  of  science,  that  in  the  whole  list  of  truths  which 
investigation  has  revealed,  there  is  hardly  a  single  one 
which,  at  the  time  of  its  discovery,  and  in  some  instances 
long  after,  did  not  stand  in  this  same  unfortunate  class. 
The  truth  is,  that  speculations  upon  the  value  of  any 
discovery  whatever,  in  the  moment  in  which  the  discov 
ery  is  made,  are  totaly  idle — are  worse  than  idle — are 
foolish.  The  alchemists,  in  their  indefatigable  though 
empirical  and  blind  researches  in  quest  of  the  philoso- 


LETTER.  55 

pher's  stone,  discovered  many  curious  compounds  which, 
since  they  availed  nothing  towards  the  production  of 
gold,  were  held  by  them  in  low  esteem;  yet  among 
these  are  some  of  those  energetic  re-agents  which,  in  the 
hands  of  modern  chemistry,  and  directed  by  modern 
intelligence,  have  heaped  up  gold  in  mountains  beyond 
even  the  alchemist's  wildest  dreams,  in  the  heart  of 
eveiy  civilized  land. 

To  descend  to  later  times,  and  to  speak  with  more 
specific  particularity,  when  Priestly,  in  1774,  turning  the 
focus  of  his  burning  lens  upon  the  substance  known  in 
the  shops  of  the  apothecaries  under  the  name  of  red 
precipitate,  detached  bubbles  of  a  gas  identical  with 
that  which,  in  the  atmosphere,  supports  life,  who  could 
presume  that,  in  tlius  freeing  one  of  the  metals  from  its 
companion  element,  he  had  detected  the  composition  of 
many  or*  the  most  useful  ores,  and  furnished  a  hint 
which  was  yet  to  reduce  all  metallurgic  art,  from  the 
smelting  of  iron  to  the  reduction  of  aluminum,  under 
the  dominion  of  chemical  science,  and  to  the  severe  rule 
of  an  intelligent  and  a  productive  economy  ?  When,  in 
the  same  year,  Scheele,  by  operating  on  the  acid  of  sea- 
salt,  made  first  visible  to  human  eyes  that  beautifully 
colored  gas  whose  suffocating  odor  is  now  so  well  known 
to  all  the  world,  who  could  foresee  the  astonishing  revo 
lution  which  a  discovery  then  interesting  only  for  its 
curious  beauty,  was  destined  to  introduce  into  the  man 
ufacture  of  paper,  of  linen  textures,  and  of  a  vast  mul 
titude  of  other  objects,  of  daily  and  hourly  use  ?  Or 


NTVERSITY, 

LETTER. 

what  imagination  could  have  been  extravagant  enough 

o  o  O 

or  fantastic  enough  in  the  exercise  of  its  inventive 
power,  to  anticipate  that  a  substance,  for  the  moment 
not  merely  useless  but  seemingly  noxious,  would  in  the 
nineteenth  century  accomplish  what  without  it,  no 
instrumentality  known  to  science  or  art  could  have 
accomplished, — find  aliment  for  the  rapacious  maw  of 
a  letter-press  whose  insatiable  demands,  already  grown 
vast  beyond  all  conception,  grow  yet  with  each  succeed 
ing  year  ?  When  the  chemists  of  the  last  century  ob 
served  the  discoloration  and  degradation  which  certain 
metallic  salts  undergo  in  the  sunlight,  who  could  possi 
bly  read,  in  a  circumstance  so  apparently  trivial  though 
occasionally  troublesome,  the  intimation  that  the  sun 
himself  was  about  to  place  in  the  hands  of  Mepce,  and 
Daguerre,  and  Talbot,  a  pencil  whose  magical  powers  of 
delineation  should  cause  the  highest  achievements  of 
human  pictorial  art  to  seem  poor  and  rude  in  the  com 
parison?  When  Malus,  in  1810,  watching  the  glare  of 
the  sun's  rays  reflected  from  the  windows  of  the  Luxem- 
bourgh  to  his  own,  noticed  for  the  first  time  the  curi 
ous  phenomena  attendant  on  that  peculiar  condition  of 
light  which  has  since  been  known  by  the  name  of 
polarization,  what  prescience  could  have  connected  a  fact 
so  totally  without  any  perceptible  utility,  with  the  man 
ufacture  of  sugar  in  France ;  or  have  anticipated  that  an 
instrument  founded  in  principle  on  this  very  property, 
would,  forty  years  later,  effect  an  annual  saving  to  the 
French  people  to  the  extent  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of 


L  E  T  T  E  E.  57 

francs?  When  (Ersted,  in  1810,  observed  the  disturb 
ance  of  the  magnetic  needle  by  the  influence  of  a  neigh 
boring  galvanic  current,  how  wild  and  visionary  would 
not  that  man  have  been  pronounced  to  be,  who  should 
have  professed  to  read  in  an  indication  so  slight,  the 
grand  truth  that  science  had  that  day  stretched  out  the 
sceptre  of  her  authority  over  a  winged  messenger,  whose 
fleetness  should  make  a  laggard  even  of  Oberon's  fa 
miliar  sprite,  and  render  the  velocity  which  could  u  put 
a  girdle  round  the  earth  in  forty  minutes,"  tardy  and 
unsatisfying  ? 

Questions  of  this  kind,  suggested  by  the  history  of 
scientific  progress,  might  be  multiplied  to  fill  a  volume. 
Indeed,  it  has  almost  corne  to  be  a  dogma  in  science, 
that  there  is  no  new  truth  whatever,  no  matter  how  wide 
a  space  may  seem,  in  the  hour  of  its  discovery,  to  divide 
it  from  any  connection  with  the  material  interests  of 
man,  which  carriers  not  within  it  the  latent  seeds  of  a 
utility,  which  further  discovery  in  the  same  field  will 
reveal  and  cause  to  germinate.  And  it  has  also  almost 
come  to  be  a  rule,  that  new  discoveries  in  regard  to  the 
properties  of  material  things,  or  of  the  laws  that  govern 
them,  shall  belong  to  the  class  of  seemingly  useless 
truths.  For  the  obvious  applications  of  known  natural 
la^vs,  the  obvious  utilities  inherent  in  familiar  physical 
qualities,  have,  under  the  untiring  scrutiny  of  myriads 
of  penetrating  eyes,  been  long  since  brought  to  light, 
and,  inwrought  into  the  endlessly  varied  operations  of 
human  art,  have  been  made  tributary  to  the  service  of 


58  LETTER. 

mankind.  The  superficial  placers  have  all  been  over 
run  and  exhausted;  the  golden  sands  of  the  pleasant 
river  valleys  have  yielded  up  their  dazzling  and  easily 
won  treasures  ;  the  rifled  surface  presents  no  longer  any 
thing  to  recompense  the  labor  of  the  eager  adventurer ; 
but  deep  in  the  everlasting  rocks,  and  locked  in  an 
adamantine  prison,  lies  yet  the  precious  object  of  desire ; 
still  attainable,  but  attainable  only  at  the  price  of  a  toil 
that  never  tires,  as  the  conquest  of  an  energy  which 
difficulties  only  stimulate,  and  as  the  reward  of  a 
patience  which  no  discouragements  can  exhaust. 

The  analogy  between  the  two  cases  here  present 
ed,  that  of  the  miner  for  material  treasures,  and  the 
delver  after  scientific  truth,  is  up  to  this  point  com 
plete.  But  the  gold  of  the  miner  is  still  the  same  gold, 
whether  it  be  picked  up  loose-lying  from  among  the 
sands  of  the  river,  or  torn  with  sweat  and  toil  from  the 
bowels  of  the  earth.  The  deep-lying  truths,  on  the 
other  hand,  wLich  tlie  patient  and  persevering  inquirer 
succeeds  in  occasionally  bringing,  one  by  one,  to  the 
surface,  resemble  in  point  of  value  the  gold  of  the  mine, 
not  through  identity  of  uses  with  truths  before  known, 
as  gold  is  identical  in  properties  with  other  gold,  but 
through  their  adaptation  to  new  uses  which  still  remain 
to  be  brought  to  light.  And  thus  a  new  truth  of  this 
class,  though  in  its  bosom  may  lie  buried  the  germ  of  a 
wealth  to  which  all  the  gold  of  California  would  be  but 
as  the  light  dust  of  the  balance,  may  yet  for  years  oc 
cupy  in  men's  estimations  no  higher  a  place  than  that  of 


LETTER.  59 

a  fact  of  curious  knowledge;' even  as  the  priceless  dia 
mond  in  the  cottage  of  the  fisherman  of  the  eastern  tale 
was  esteemed  capable  of  being  turned  to  no  better  ac 
count  than  to  serve  as  a  plaything  for  children.  Not 
even  useful  truth  is  useful  until  it  is  known  to  be  so, 
and  until  it  is  known  how  it  is  to  be  so.  And  no  matter 
how  numerous  and  multiform  may  be  the  novel  facts 
which  the  invading  armies  of  science,  in  their  grand 
march  through  the  regions  of  the  unknown,  may  sweep 
together  as  their  spoil,  and  no  matter  what  infinity  of 
benefit  to  man  may  be  hidden  among  the  rich  booty- 
all  this  availeth  nothing  to  the  world  which  it  so  deeply 
concerns,  until,  by  patient  study  and  unwearied  perse 
verance,  and  experiment  endlessly  varied  and  feeling  its 
way  cautiously  in  the  obscurity,  it  has  been  made  mani 
fest  to  what  useful  ends  the  results  of  the  conquest  may 
be  applied.  Thus,  when  Volta,  by  piling  up  bits  of 
metal  and  moistened  card-board,  one  upon  another,  suc 
ceeded  in  producing  a  feeble  disturbance  of  electrical 
equilibrium,  he  discovered,  as  early  as  the  year  1800,  a 
truth  pregnant  with  consequences  of  incalculable  mo 
ment  to  science,  and  destined  to  contribute  more  to 
human  comfort  and  the  wealth  of  nations,  than  the 
discoveiy  of  a  dozen  Californias.  Yet  several  years 
elapsed  before,  in  the  hands  of  Davy,  the  wonderful  fer 
tility  of  this  great  germ-truth  even  began  to  be  re 
vealed;  and  still,  at  this  very  day,  after  the  lapse  of 
more  than  half  a  century,  after  a  long  series  of  illustrious 
investigators,  some  of  them  made  chiefly  illustrious  by 


60  LETTER. 

their  very  association  with  this  subject,  have  added 
their  labors  to  his, — after  the  inventive  genius  of  a 
Hare,  and  a  Wollaston,  and  a  Daniell,  and  a  Grove,  and 
a  Bunsen,  have  been  successively  employed  in  exalting 
the  energy  of  the  combinations,  and  the  intelligent 
sagacity  of  an  Ampere,  an  Arago,  a  Henry,  a  De  la 
Rive,  and  a  Faraday,  have  been  busying  themselves 
with  the  applications,  and  opening  out  to  view  a  bril 
liant  array  of  resultant  truths ;  when  all  things  in  earth 
and  air  and  sea  have  yielded  to  this  next  to  miraculous 
power  the  secret  of  their  composition;  when  the  obdu 
rate  puzzle  of  the  earth's  magnetism  has  melted  away 
before  it;  when  a  net-work  of  electric  wires  has  anni 
hilated  the  breadth  of  continents,  and  the  two  mightiest 
nations  of  the  earth  are  preparing  to  stretch  out  the  line 
which  links  thought  with  thought,  from  shore  to  shore 
of  the  ocean  itself, — even  now,  the  progressive  develop 
ment  of  the  great  germ-truth  is  still  unchecked,  and  the 
world  is  full  of  laborers  exploring,  with  unabated  zeal, 
the  field  first  opened  to  their  research  by  the  intelligent 
observation  and  appreciative  genius  of  Volta. 

If  it  is  difficult,  then,  for  philosophers  themselves  to 
judge,  in  the  first  moments  of  discovery,  in  what  pre 
cise  form,  and  through  what  precise  practical  applica 
tion,  any  new  truth  may  become  palpably  useful  to  man, 
how  much  more  so  must  it  be  for  the  multitude  who  are 
not  philosophers!  And  if,  in  the  experience  of  centu 
ries,  it  has  happened,  in  instances  which  defy  enumera 
tion,  that  the  insignificant  truth  of  to-day  has  been 


LETTER. 


61 


exalted  to  a  position  of  the  highest  dignity  to-morrow, 
how  shall  we  venture  to  say,  of  any  known  fact  of 
science,  however  it  may  surpass  our  present  penetration 
to  discover  any  connection,  immediate  or  remote,  be 
tween  it  and  the  increase  of  human  wealth  or  comfort, 
that  it  is  a  useless  fact,  or  that  the  labor  which  may 
have  been  expended  in  bringing  it  to  light  has  been 
thrown  away. 

The  science  of  astronomy  is  that  which  seems,  to  the 
view  of  most  men  at  the  present  day,  to  occupy  itself 
more  than  any  other,  with  laborious  trifling.  Not  that 
the  uses  of  astronomy  in  general,  are  altogether  denied. 
Most  persons  know  that  astronomy  has  something  to  do, 
in  some  way  or  other,  with  navigation ;  and  nobody 
need  be  told  that  navigation  has  something  to  do  with 
commerce,  or  commerce  with  human  wealth.  Bat  the 
idea  seems  to  be  generally  prevalent,  that  all  the  service 
which  astronomy  can  render  to  navigation  has  been  ren 
dered  long  ago,  and  that  observers  are  now  idly  gazing 
up  into  the  skies  for  the  gratification  of  a  transcendent- 
ally  refined  curiosity.  The  fact  then,  that  this  science 
has  already  done  much  to  promote  men's  most,  substan 
tial  interests,  seems  to  be  esteemed  an  argument  in  dis 
proof  of  the  probability  or  the  prospect  of  its  ever  doing 
more.  But  it  is  true,  notwithstanding,  that  astronomy 
is  still  too  far  short  of  the  point  of  perfection,  to  assign 
the  place  of  a  ship  on  the  ocean  within  a  narrower  limit 
of  error  than  three  or  four  miles. 

Now,  the  importance  to  an  individual  navigator  of 


62  LETTER. 

being  able  to  determine  his  longitude,  is  perhaps  intelli 
gible  enough  to  need  no  illustration;  but  the  impor 
tance  which  commercial  nations  have  always  attached  to 
the  possession  of  a  general  method,  which  should  enable 
all  their  navigators,  at  all  times  and  on  every  ocean,  to 
do  the  same,  may  be  best  understood  by  considering 
what  governments  have  done  in  order  to  secure  such  a 
method.  As  early  as  1598,  Philip  III,  of  Spain,  offered 
a  reward  of  one  thousand  crowns  to  the  person  who 
should  solve  the  problem.  The  Dutch  States  shortly 
after  followed  with  an  offer  of  ten  thousand  florins.  In 
1714,  the  British  Parliament  proposed  the  magnificent 
prize  of  twenty  thousand  pounds  to  any  one  who  should 
furnish  a  method  by  which  longitude  on  the  ocean  could 
be  ascertained  within  thirty  geographical  miles.  The 
same  body  offered  also  the  lesser  reward  of  fifteen 
thousand  pounds  for  a  method  which  should  be  correct 
within  forty  miles ;  and  ten  thousand,  for  one  true  only 
within  sixty.  In  1716,  France,  under  the  regency  of  the 
Duke  of  Orleans,  offered  to  the  same  end,  a  prize  of  one 
hundred  thousand  livres.  But  no  really  important  re 
sults  were  ever  arrived  at,  until  after  the  establishment 
of  regular  astronomical  observatories.  When,  in  1674, 
St.  Pierre,  a  French  competitor  for  the  prize  offered  by 
Parliament,  presented  to  the  court  of  Charles  II.  an 
astronomical  method  for  the  determination  of  the  longi 
tude,  no  better  tables  of  the  heavenly  bodies  existed 
than  those  of  Tycho  Brahe.  The  commissioners  ap 
pointed  to  examine  St.  Pierre's  claim,  applied  for  advice 


LETTER.  $3 

to  Flamsteed,  tlien  the  most  eminent  of  Britisli  astron 
omers.  He  replied  that  the  method  was  valueless,  on 
account  of  the  errors  of  the  tables ;  and  that  every 
astronomical  method  must  be  equally  so,  unless  the 
places  of  the  heavenly  bodies  should  be  observed  anew. 
It  is  said  that  Charles,  on  reading  this  letter,  exclaimed 
impulsively,  "  But  I  must  have  them  observed  !"  and 
these  words  from  the  lips  of  royalty  laid  the  foundation 
of  the  Observatory  at  Greenwich.  That  single  insti 
tution  has  done  more  for  the  increase  of  the  world's 
wealth,  than  would  have  sufficed  to  support,  at  their 
ease,  all  the  astronomers  and  physicists  that  ever  lived, 
since  the  days  of  Hipparchus ;  to  build  and  furnish  all 
the  observatories  the  world  ever  saw ;  to  establish  and 
endow  all  the  universities,  colleges,  and  schools,  of  every 
grade,  from  highest  to  lowest,  throughout  the  globe ;  to 
erect  and  provide  for  all  the  hospitals,  alms-houses,  and 
eleemosynary  institutions  of  every  kind,  in  all  civilized 
lands ;  and  to  build  all  the  churches  and  parsonages,  as 
well  as  defray  all  other  expenses  attendant  on  the  sup 
port  of  religion,  in  every  Christian  country,  from  the 
advent  of  our  blessed  Saviour  down  to  the  present  hour. 
To  make  even  a  conjectural  estimate  of  the  true  value 
of  its  services  to  mankind,  would,  from  the  nature  of 
the  case,  be  impracticable,  since  the  elements  which 
must  enter  into  such  an  estimate  are  as  numerous  as  the 
endlessly  varied  articles  of  human  consumption.  It  is 
even  impossible  to  make  a  comparative  estimate  of  the 
value  of  astronomical  agency  considered  along  with 


64  LETTER. 

other  agencies  concerned  in  promoting  the  same  inter 
ests  ;  since  all  the  improvements  of  art  or  science  which 
tend  to  give  increased  development  to  commercial  en 
terprise,  and  all  the  stimulating  influences  which  incite 
men  to  engage  or  encourage  them  to  continue  in  com 
mercial  pursuits,  steal  from  astronomy  at  last  half  their 
efficacy,  by  availing  themselves  of  the  security  which  it 
has  provided  for  the  immense  aggregate  of  treasure 
constantly  afloat  upon  the  waves.  But  without  partic 
ularly  regarding  this  circumstance,  wTe  need  not  hesitate 
to  assert  that  the  observatories  of  Europe,  beginning 
with  those  of  Greenwich  and  Paris  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  have  done  more  in  widening  the  scope  of  the 
world's  commercial  operations,  and  quickening  the 
energy  which  has  pervaded  and  filled  them  everywhere 
with  activity,  than  all  other  influences  put  together— 
than  the  temptation  to  human  cupidity  offered  from  all 
antiquity  in  the  fabled  wealth  of  India,  Cathay,  and  the 
Islands  of  Spices — than  the  intoxication  of  that  delirium 
with  which  the  world  of  the  sixteenth  century  ran  mad 
over  the  metallic  treasures  of  the  two  Americas — than 
the  resistless  allurement  held  out  during  the  same  his 
toric  period,  to  the  spirit  of  wild  adventure,  by  the  un 
certain  riches  of  the  portions  of  the  New  World  still 
unexplored,  or  by  the  deep  mystery  which  hung  over 
the  silent  and  yet  untempted  wastes  of  the  great  South 
Sea — than  all  the  powerful  stimulus  applied  by  inter 
ested  governments,  in  the  form  of  favoring  legislation, 
grants  of  monopolies,  and  the  investment  of  trading 


LETTER.  65 

companies  with  exclusive  rights  and  privileges — than 
all  the  improvements  of  naval  architecture,  increasing 
the  strength,  the  stability,  the  capacity,  and  the  speed 
of  sea-going  vessels — than  all  the  discoveries  in  marine 
geography,  disclosing  the  hidden  dangers  of  the  ocean's 
bed,  and  the  insidious  currents  of  its  surface — than  all 
the  progress  made  in  studying  the  laws  which  govern 
the  winds,  as  to  their  direction,  their  violence,  and  their 
fluctuations ;  or  control  the  storms  that  from  time  to 
time  lash  the  watery  waste  into  fury — than  the  natural 
enlargement    of  the   field,  from   the   up-springing  and 
growth  to  greatness  of  colonies  upon  wild  and  unten- 
anted  shores — than  the  simultaneous  enlargement  of  the 
material,  by  the  discovery  of  new  articles  adapted  to 
the  uses  of  man,  or  the  application  of  articles  of  ancient 
knowledge  to  new  uses — than  the  enlargement  of  human 
wants,  through  the  facility  with  which  the  simpler  wants 
of  the  earlier  centuries  are  supplied  in  the  later — than 
the  enlargement  of  human  wealth  itself,  which   tends 
ever,  through  commercial   enterprise,  to   enlarge   itself 
still  more — than,  finally,  the  great  improvement  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  the  invocation  of  the  powerful  arm 
of  steam  to  the  propulsion  of  the  mercantile  marine, 
securing  a  rapidity  and  a  definite  duration  of  transit  on 
the  longest  voyages,  which  are  next  in  value  to  wealth, 
itself.     Yes — it   is   repeated — superior  to  ail  these  in 
fluences,  and   to  all  other  influences  which  may  have 
operated  to  give  expansion  to  the  commercial  enterprise 

of  the  world,  has  been,  during  the  last  two  centuries,  the 
5 


66  LETTER. 

increasing  security  with,  which  its  magnificent  under 
takings  have  been  surrounded  by  the  science  of  Astron 
omy,  and  by  the  patient,  weary,  long-continued,  seldom 
adequately  appreciated,  and  never  adequately  paid, 
labors  of  the  obscure  and  neglected  astronomer.  Ob 
scure  in  life,  neglected  in  life,  jostled  to  the  bottom  of 
the  heap  in  the  heterogeneous  mixture  of  human  so 
ciety,  where  the  light  weights  too  usually  come  upper 
most  ;  but  in  death  appreciated,  in  death  magnified,  in 
death  honored  with  statues  and  monuments,  in  death 
made  the  object  of  panegyric  and  eulogy !  Attentions 
how  empty  and  idle  !  Honors  how  vain  and  useless  - 
For  the  astronomer  who  has  written  his  name  upon  the 
starry  heavens,  needs  no  human  tongue  to  praise  him, 
no  human  monuments  to  perpetuate  his  memory ;  he 
dies  no  more.  The  bright  companions  of  his  many 
painful  night-watches,  when  they  miss  him  at  his  tube, 
will  whisper  his  name  softly  to  the  spirit  of  his  toiling 
successor ;  and  so  it  will  go  down  with  a  starry  lustre 
about  it,  from  one  generation  to  another,  till  the  last 
patient  sentinel  in  the  celestial  watch-tower  shall  sud 
denly  be  arrested  in  his  vocation,  and  in  his  latest  gaze 
through  the  field  of  his  protracted  labors,  shall  behold 
the  heavens  themselves  rolling  together  like  a  scroll ! 

This  great  benefit  conferred  by  astronomy  upon 
commerce,  and  through  commerce  upon  the  world's 
wealth,  has  resulted  from  the  operation  of  a  very  simple 
principle.  In  whatever  human  enterprises  wealth  is  set 
at  hazard,  the  ventures  will  be  greater  in  proportion  as 


LETTER.  67 

the  hazard  is  less.  It  is  conceivable  that  the  dangers  of 
the  ocean  might  be  so  great  as  to  arrest  transmarine 
commerce  altogether.  It  is  also  conceivable  that  they 
might  be  totally  annihilated,  so  that  commerce  by  sea 
should  be  subject  to  no  greater  burthens  or  discourage 
ments  than  commerce  by  land.  In  this  latter  state  of 
things,  the  natural  causes  stimulating  enterprise  would 
have  free  scope,  and  produce  their  full  and  legitimate 
effect.  Between  the  extremes,  commerce  would  assume 
every  intermediate  aspect  of  vitality  and  degree  of  free 
dom,  from  vigorous  life  and  total  unrestraint  on  the  one 
hand,  down  to  absolute  torpidity  and  complete  inaction 
on  the  other.  Now,  among  the  Athenians,  according  to 
Say,  marine  insurance  bore  the  extravagant  rate  of  sixty 
per  cent,  per  annum,  or  thirty  per  cent,  per  voyage  on 
the  total  value  insured.  Say  supposes  this  extraordinary 
fact  to  be  in  part  attributable  to  the  barbarous  habit  of 
the  peoples  with  whom  the  Athenians  traded ;  a  suppo 
sition  apparently  quite  gratuitous,  since  no  producing 
people  is  hostile  to  commerce,  and  no  non-producing 
people  is  worth  trading  with.  But  he  attributes  it  also, 
with  greater  justice,  to  the  dangers  of  navigation ;  and 
adds  this  significant  remark:  "There  was  more  danger 
[to  the  Athenian  merchant-sailors]  in  a  voyage  from  the 
Piroeus  to  Trapezus,  though  but  three  hundred  leagues 
distant,  than  there  is  now  [1826]  in  one  from  L'Orient 
to  China,  which  is  a  distance  of  seven  thousand."  This 
statement  alone  is  sufficient  to  show  that  the  reduction 
of  marine  dangers  in  modern  times — a  reduction  mainly 


(38  LETTER. 

due  to  astronomy — has  been  sufficient,  ten  times  over,  to 
stimulate  into  vigor  a  struggling  trade  ;  and  hence  that 
that  rich  oriental  commerce  which  lived  and  nourished, 
and  in  the  hands  of  the  Venetians,  and  the  Portuguese, 
and  the  Dutch,  poured  wealth  into  Europe,  in  spite  of  the 
difficulties  and  dangers — greater  than  those  of  ocean— 
of  the  overland  route,  in  spite  of  the  indefinite  perils 
and  perpetual  losses  of  the  tedious  voyage  by  the  Cape, 
in  spite  of  the  months  of  time  wasted  in  the  transit 
during  which  the  capital  lay  a  dead  investment — the 
commerce  which  under  all  these  disadvantages  not  only 
continued  to  live,  but  which  enriched  its  possessors, 
must,  under  the  almost  boundless  development  given  to 
it  by  the  favoring  circumstances  of  modern  times,  have 
contributed  to  the  world's  wealth  to  an  extent  which  no 
figures  can  compute. 

The  condition  of  the  astronomical  tables  at  the 
founding  of  the  Royal  Observatory  was  such,  that  they 
could  not,  by  any  possibility,  be  made  the  basis  of  a 
method  of  practical  navigation ;  since  the  place  of  a 
ship  as  determined  by  them,  might  possibly  be  in  error 
to  the  enormous  extent  of  nine  hundred  miles ;  nor  was 
it  in  the  power  of  any  correction  practicable  without 
new  and  laborious  observation,  to  reduce  this  limit  of 
error  to  less  than  one  fourth  of  its  amount,  or  nearly  two 
hundred  miles.  On  the  establishment  of  observatories, 
the  first  and  largest  steps  toward  improvement  were 
comparatively  rapid  and  easy ;  the  more  recent  have, 
on  the  contrary,  been  slow  and  difficult.  It  is  so  with 


LETTER.  69 

all  progress  toward  the  ideal  of  perfection.  The 
sculptor  blocks  out  his  statue  with  a  bold  and  heavy- 
hand.  The  rough  and  massive  fragments  fall  off  in 
showers  upon  every  side ;  and,  in  a  space  incredibly 
brief,  the  figure  of  the  image  reveals  itself  dimly,  as  if 
it  were  already  a  real  existence,  smothered  beneath  a 
rocky  incrustation.  But  when  this  rigid  veil  begins  to 
grow  thin,  and  the  looker-on  almost  expects  to  see  the 
impatient  master  tear  it  impulsively  away,  then  it  is 
that  tire  true  labor  only  commences.  Then  it  is  that 
the  coarse  chisel  and  the  heavy  mallet  will  serve  no 
longer,  but  with  a  more  delicate  implement,  and  a  more 
cautious  hand,  and  a  more  anxiously  watchful  eye,  the 
master  sculptor  detaches  the  remaining  superfluities, 
grain  by  grain.  And  so  with  astronomy.  Great  lumps 
of  error  fell  away  in  the  lifetime  of  the  first  public 
astronomers;  but  the  outline  of  a  satisfactory  method  of 
navigation  by  the  stars  still  foiled  to  appear.  The 
moon,  u  the  inconstant  moon,"  had  still  to  be  watched 
through  many  a  weary  revolution,  and  nearly  a  centuiy 
passed  away  before  the  image  in  the  rock  at  which  the 
patient  laborers  had  been  so  long  toiling,  could  be  dis 
tinctly  traced.  Not  till  near  the  close  of  that  long 
period,  had  astronomy  presented  to  the  world  a  method 
of  ocean  longitude,  within  the  outside  limits  specified  by 
the  parliamentary  act  of  1714.  If,  then,  to  make  but  a 
modest  approach  toward  theoretic  perfection,  when 
practical  astronomy  was  yet  on  every  side  open  to  easy 
improvement  by  the  first  comers,  was  a  labor  arduous 


70  LETTER. 

and  slow,  what  must  have  since  been,  what  must  yet 
continue  to  be,  the  toilsomeness  of  the  task  of  working 
out  its  still  higher  improvement,  and  carrying  it  onward 
toward  that  standard  of  ideal  perfection,  which  science 
will  continue  to  approximate  while  the  world  stands,  but 
after  all,  will  never  fully  attain. 

It  is  sometimes  made  our  reproach,  it  is  spoken  of  as 
if  it  were  a  preposterous  thing,  that  we  should  desire  to 
see  Mississippi,  as  well  as  the  rest  of  the  world,  doing 
something  to  promote  the  progress  of  this  great  work. 
Surely  they  upon  whom  the  responsibility  of  the  under 
taking  must  fall,  cannot  be  supposed  to  have  any  selfish 
feeling  to  gratify,  any  personal  interests  to  serve,  in 
urging  this  thing.  To  those  to  whom  such  an  impression 
may  have  occurred,  it  would  be  instructive,  if  it  were 
possible  to  observe  an  astronomer  at  his  work.  It  is  no 
child's  play  which  occupies  him.  In  the  long,  deep 
silence  of  the  world's  repose,  sleepless  himself  though 
weary,  fixed  motionless  in  attitudes  often  painful,  with 
an  attention  which  must  never '  flag,  and  an  eye  which 
must  never  relax  its  strain,  he  watches  for  hours  the 
monotonous  stars  as  they  pass ;  and  automatically,  as  if 
he  were  a  part  of  the  instrument  which  he  controls, 
notes  down  the  moment  of  their  passage  with  the 
electric  key.  Night  after  night  he  follows  up  this 
unvarying  and  uninteresting  toil.  Day  after  day  he 
elaborates  the  results  with  a  lavish  profusion  of  numer 
ical  computations,  which  leave  the  labors  of  the  bank 
er's  clerk  and  accountant  far  in  the  shade.  And  this 


LETTER.  71 

work,  prosecuted  for  some  years,  enables  him  at  last, 
perhaps  to  say  that  he  has  contributed  his  share  toward 
removing  one  more  small  chip  from  the  block  in  which 
the  ideal  perfection  is  still  locked  up.  The  picture  may 
excite  admiration ;  but  certainly,  seen  from  this  point  of 
view,  there  is  nothing  in  it  to  invite  emulation,  or  to 
promise  ease.  We  admire,  as  we  admire  the  elabora- 
tors  of  lexicons,  and  of  concordances  to  the  Holy  Scrip 
tures.  And  when  we  see  one  man  after  another 
devoting  his  strength  to  this  exhausting  work,  and 
wearing  himself  out  in  the  patient  scrutiny  of  the  starry 
heavens,  instead  of  regarding  him  as  an  idle  squanderer 
of  the  time  and  talents  that  God  has  given  him,  ought  we 
not  to  look  upon  him  rather,  as  truly  as  we  do  on  Galileo 
himself,  as  belonging  to  the  number  of  those  whom 
science  may  justly  rank  in  her  noble  army  of  mar 
tyrs  ! 

The  fact  that  the  state  of  refinement  which  prac 
tical  astronomy  has  attained  to-day  is  such,  that  the 
observations  of  to-night  cannot  be  turned  to  immediate 
account  to-morrow  morning,  but  that  the  accumulated 
results  of  many  observations  are  necessary  to  a  single 
additional  step  of  progress,  is  one  which  places  the 
science  at  a  great  disadvantage,  when  its  claims  are 
canvassed  in  the  world.  The  incidental  facts  of  dis 
covery,  therefore,  which  astronomers  occasionally  pick 
up,  and  which  are  of  a  nature  to  be  generally  under 
stood,  though  they  illustrate  in  no  manner  the  great  and 
proper  labors  of  these  useful  men,  are  often  seized  upon 


72  LETTER. 

by  those  who  ignorantly  depreciate  the  value  of  as 
tronomical  research,  as  if  they  were  appropriate  exam 
ples  of  the  objects  and  ends  of  all  modern  astronomy. 
A  telescopic  comet  is  announced,  and  the  discoverer  is 
rewarded,  perhaps,  by  a  royal  medal.  Now,  what  of 
this  comet  ?  says  the  objector,  and  how  is  the  world  the 
better  for  its  discovery?  Well,  for  the  present,  we 
allow  that  we  have 'nothing  to  say  of  the  comet.  We 
freely  admit  that  we  shall  sleep  no  warmer  in  our  beds, 
nor  wake  any  richer  in  the  morning,  on  account  of  it. 
Yet  the  reward  is  a  just  reward  for  vigilance,  and  vigi 
lance  certainly  is  valuable.  Experience  has,  moreover, 
shown  that  the  observation  even  of  comets  has  no  slight 
interest  in  its  relations  to  the  theory  of  gravitation,  to 
the  physical  condition  of  the  realms  of  space,  and  to  the 
permanence  of  the  system  to  which  we  belong.  But  let 
the  comet  go  ;  class  it  with  the  Antarctic  continent  dis 
covery  by  Wilkes,  or  with  the  boomerang  of  his  Fejee 
islanders.  "\Ye  are  n°t  a^  a^  the  happier  or  the  less 
happy  for  the  one  or  for  the  other ;  yet  the  Antarctic 
continent  is,  after  all,  a  great  fact ;  and  the  boomerang 
is  a  small  one,  which  there  was  surely  no  harm  in 
recording. 

The  objector  sometimes,  however,  unconsciously 
founds  his  strictures  upon  discoveries  which  are  not 
trifles.  The  undersigned  has  heard  the  question  gravely 
raised,  what  advantage  has  the  world  derived  from  the 
discovery  of  the  planet  Uranus  ?  The  fact,  remarks  the 
objector,  is  called  an  important  one  ;  and  yet,  for  nearly 


LETTER.  73 

six  thousand  years  according  to  Usher,  mankind  had 
got  along  very  well  without  it.  Now,  this  latter  remark, 
be  it  observed,  is  very  little  to  the  purpose.  Mankind 
got  along  well  enough  for  a  time  without  buttons  and 
without  breeches;  and  much  longer  without  the  printing 
press,  and  without  the  steam-engine.  Mankind  felt  no 
need  of  cannon  when  there  was  no  gunpowder,  or  of 
telegraph  posts  when  there  was  no  galvanism.  Mankind 
got  along  very  well  without  Uranus,  and  could  have  got 
on  much  longer  under  the  same  privation,  had  not 
Uranus  been  discovered.  But  to  say  that  the  discovery 
has  been  of  no  use, — this  is  an  admission  which  we  are 
not  prepared  to  make.  It  has  been  of  use,  as  may  be 
easily  illustrated. 

First,  however,  let  attention  be  drawn  to  an  anal 
ogous  discovery  of  somewhat  later  date,  the  history  of 
which,  both  curious  and  instructive,  may  best  precede 
what  relates  to  Uranus.  On  the  first  day  of  January,  of 
the  year  1801,  the  very  first  day  of  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury,  the  distinguished  astronomer,  Piazzi,  of  Palermo, 
observed  a  minute  planet,  never  before  noticed  by 
human  eye,  since  known  by  the  name  of  Ceres.  Com 
pared  with  Uranus,  it  is  but  a  sand-grain  to  a  moun 
tain.  Compared  even  with  our  moon,  it  is  but  an  insig 
nificant  globule — a  pepper-corn  to  an  orange.  Yet  its 
discovery  had  a  value.  Piazzi  silently  observed  it,  design 
ing,  so  soon  as  he  should  have  satisfactorily  determined 
its  orbit,  to  surprise  the  world  by  the  announcement  of 
a  new  member  of  the  solar  system  ;  but  it  soon  plunged 


74  LETTER. 

into  the  overwhelming  blaze  of  tlie  solar  radiance,  and 
was  lost  to  view  for  months.  Unable,  from  the  few 
observations  he  had  gathered,  to  determine  the  path  of 
the  stranger,  Piazzi  at  length  laid  the  observations  them 
selves  before  the  astronomical  world.  The  period  of 
the  probable  emergence  of  the  body  from  its  veil  of 
light  having  arrived,  innumerable  telescopes  were  direct 
ed  toward  the  region  of  the  heavens  in  which  its  track 
was  presumed  to  lie ;  but  not  all  the  scrutiny  nor  all  the 
perseverance  of  all  the  astronomers  of  Europe  could 
suffice  to  recover  the  lost  planet  again  to  human  view. 
Gradually  a  suspicion  began  to  be  whispered  that  the 
pretended  discovery  was  no  discovery  at  all ;  but  that 
Piazzi  had  fabricated  the  observations  with  the  malicious 
design  to  puzzle  and  annoy  his  contemporaries. 

Now,  at  about  this  very  period,  a  mathematician  of 
Germany  had  had  his  thoughts  turned  toward  a  defect 
in  the  existing  state  of  astronomical"  science,  in  regard 
to  the  determination  of  planetary  paths.  While  this 
defect  continued,  it  was  impossible  to  test  the  question 
whether  the  observations  were  genuine  or  not.  The 
occasion  stimulated  him  to  supply  the  defect ;  and  the 
result,  the  "  Tkeoria  Motus  Corporum  Ccdestium"  of 
Gauss,  was  one  of  the  most  valuable  contributions  to 
mathematical  science  ever  made.  By  the  aid  of  the 
"  TJieoria  Motus"  the  path  of  the  planet  Ceres  was 
traced  from  the  time  when  it  escaped  from  the  hands  of 
Piazzi.  Gauss  said  to  the  astronomers,  ''  Look  yonder, 
and  you  will  find  your  truant  star."  They  looked,  and 


LETTER.  75 

the  little  globule  was  recovered  on  the  first  clear  night 
thereafter. 

Now,  what  the  planet  Ceres  did  for  the  world  was, 
to  improve  mathematical  science — the  science  whose  use 
ful  applications  on  the  earth  are  infinitely  varied,  and 
without  which  all  our  knowledge  of  the  heavens  derived 
from  mere  observation,  would  be  of  no  value  whatever, 
either  to  navigation  or  to  any  other  end.  And  what 
the  planet  Ceres  did,  that  the  planet  Uranus  has  done  in 
a  different  manner. 

From  an  early  period  following  its  discovery,  this 
planet  had  been  a  very  burthen  upon  the  patience  of 
astronomers,  and  a  sore  trial  to  their  faith.  From  its 
motions  as  actually  observed,  its  prospective  motions  as 
they  ought  to  be,  were  deduced  by  computation ;  and 
its  path  was  prescribed  to  it  with  a  confidence  which  the 
tested  power  of  physical  astronomy  had  rendered  some 
what  strongly  assured.  But  Uranus  seemed  very  little 
to  heed  the  dictates  of  the  astronomers,  and  the  path 
which  they  assigned  him  was  one  in  which  he  chose  not 
to  walk.  Moreover,  after  his  discovery,  the  fact  pre 
sented  itself  that  he  had  already  been  observed  nineteen 
times  before,  without  being  recognized  as  a  planet— 
once  so  long  before  as  1690;  and  that  when  the  posi 
tions  which  he  occupied  at  the  times  of  those  ancient 
observations  were  compared  with  what  they  should 
have  been  according  to  the  law  of  his  later  motion, 
there  was  a  disagreement  to  an  extent  so  large  as  to 
make  it  impossible  to  assign  any  path  whatever  to  this 


76  LETTER. 

contumacious  planet,  which  should  at  the  same  time 
recognize  the  theory  of  gravitation,  and  harmonize  the 
old  observations  with  the  new.  Here  was  a  case  of  real 
perplexity.  It  brought  directly  up  the  question  whether 
or  not  the  law  of  gravitation  is,  after  all,  one  which  can 
be  universally  relied  on.  Evidently  the  decision  must 
go  against  the  law,  unless  it  can  be  shown  that  some  dis 
turbing  body  heretofore  overlooked,  exists  within  the 
limits  of  the  system,  and  of  which  we  know  nothing 
now  except  what  we  read  in  the  seeming  caprices  of 
Uranus.  The  data  on  which  the  discussion  of  this  ques 
tion  was  to  proceed  were  evidently  very  slight — much 
slighter  than  had  existed  when  Gauss  attacked  the 
problem  of  Ceres.  Ceres  had  been  seen — the  unknown 
disturber  of  Uranus,  never.  But  as  if  to  illustrate  the 
truth  that,  as  difficulties  accumulate,  human  energies  cor 
respondingly  rise  to  their,  encounter,  it  was  this  time  not 
a  single  champion  who  rushed  forward  to  the  support 
of  troubled  science,  but  two  simultaneously,  who,  with 
equal  enthusiasm,  equal  perseverance,  and  equal  final 
success,  attacked  the  difficulty,  and  bore  off  the  plau 
dits  of  the  world.  Leverrier  wrote  to  his  friend  at  Ber 
lin,  "Examine  the  point  I  describe,  and  you  will  find 
the  disturber."  Gralle  turned  his  telescope  in  that  direc 
tion,  and  in  the  self-same  hour,  Neptune  was  found. 
Simultaneously,  Adams  laid  his  finger  on  the  map  of  the 
heavens,  and  said  to  the  astronomer  of  Cambridge,  "It  is 
in  this  lurking-place,  precisely,  that  you  will  find  the 
author  of  all  our  confusion."  The  astronomer,  Challis, 


LETTER.  77 

distrusting  isolated  observations,  commenced  a  system 
atic  sweep  of  the  whole  region.  He  saw  and  recorded 
the  planet  twice  without  knowing  it ;  and  failed  to  make 
the  discovery  simply  because  lie  deferred  the  comparison 
of  his  observations  until  too  late.  Thus  the  benefit 
which  has  resulted  ultimately  to  the  world  from  the  dis 
covery  of  Uranus,  is  analogous  to  that  of  which  Ceres 
was  the  occasion:  it  has  wonderfully  stimulated  the 
ingenuity  of  men  in  the  improvement  of  mathematical 
methods,  and  has  thus  contributed  to  the  advancement 
of  that  science,  without  which  no  other  exact  science 
can  exist. 

It  is  hard,  however,  to~  be  compelled  to  rest  the  argu 
ment  for  utility  upon  so  narrow  a  basis  as  this.  It  is 
hard  not  to  be  permitted  to  think  it  useful,  and  as  a  les 
son  to  human  conceit  valuable,  to .  know  that  the  insig 
nificant  ball  on  which  we  dwell  is  really,  after  all,  not  a 
very  great  nor  a  very  magnificent  portion  of  God's  vast 
creation,  or  even  of  the  planetary  system  to  which  it  im 
mediately  belongs ;  that  minute  and  insignificant  as  it  ap 
peared  in  the  circle  of  its  sister  planets  before  the  discov 
ery  of  Uranus,  its  dignity  was  doubly  dwarfed  in  conse 
quence  of  that  discovery,  by  the  expansion  of  the  system 
to  twice  itspreviously  ascertained  colossal  dimensions,  and 
has  been  a  second  time  reduced  in  the  same  proportion, 
by  the  more  recent  discovery  of  Neptune. 

And  besides  all  this,  it  is  really  both  annoying  and 
discouraging  to  think  that  it  seems  not  to  be  permitted  to 
the  hard-working  and  pains-taking  astronomer  to  discover 


I  NTIVERSITY 

LETTEE' 


any  thing  for  which  he  cannot  find  an  immediately  practical 
use,  into  the  advantages  of  which  all  the  world,  learned 
and  unlearned  alike,  can  at  once  enter.  What  if  there  were 
no  use  in  the  occasional  discovery  of  a  planet  or  a  comet, 
beyond  the  gratification  it  affords  to  the  astronomical 
world  ?  Is  not  that  enough  ?  Does  not  the  astronomer 
render,  in  a  thousand  other  ways,  service  enough  to  man 
kind  to  warrant  his  occasional  indulgence  in  the  luxury  of 
a  new  planet  ?  "  Thou  shalt  not  muzzle  the  ox  when  he 
treadeth  out  the  corn,"  was  the  humane  command  of  the 
Levitical  law.  If  astronomy  is  of  service  to  the  world, 
at  least  let  the  world  permit  to  the  astronomer  some 
sources  of  enjoyment  from  the  results  of  his  own  labors. 

In  addition  to  the  general  considerations  thus  far 
presented,  the  undersigned  now  begs  leave  to  offer  a  few 
specific  arguments  in  favor  of  the  project  which  he  has 
had  the  honor,  in  the  earlier  portion  of  this  letter,  to 
submit  to  the  enlightened  deliberation  of  your  honorable 
body. 

I.  In  the  first  place,  the  existence  of  a  school  of 
higher  learning  in  Mississippi  is  of  essential  importance 
in  view  of  the  instrumentality  of  such  institutions  in  the 
development  of  native  genius.  There  is  no  doubt  that, 
among  every  people,  there  exist  capacities  that,  for  want 
of  opportunity,  are  never  developed.  There  is  no  doubt, 
that  favoring  opportunity  has  been  the  immediately 
stimulating  cause  of  nearly  all  the  greatness  which  the 
world  ever  saw.  If  the  names  of  Washington  and  Greene, 
and  Hancock  and  Jefferson,  will  forever  ring  in  the  ears 


LETTER.  79 

of  the  human  race,  it  is  no  doubt  to  the  opportunity 
opened  to  them  by  the  American  Revolution,  that  their 
celebrity  is  to  be  ascribed.  If  the  gigantic  name  of  Na 
poleon  fills  up  all  the  earlier  years  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  it  is  no  doubt  to  the  opportunity  presented  to 
the  youthful  soldier  by  the  command  of  the  army  of 
Italy,  that  his  rapid  march  to  empire  is  mainly  attribu 
table.  There  is  probably  not  an  ancient  churchyard  in 
the  world,  to  which  the  expressive  lines  of  Gray  may 
not  be  appropriately  applied  :— 

"  Perhaps  in  this  neglected  spot  is  laid 

Some  heart  once  pregnant  with  celestial  fire ; 
Hands  which  the  rod  of  empire  might  have  swayed 
Or  waked  to  ecstasy  the  living  lyre. 

"But  knowledge  to  their  eyes  her  ample  page, 

Bich  with  the  spoils  of  time,  did  ne'er  unroll — " 

Ah,  there  the  poet  has  touched  the  heart  of  the 
secret !  Knowledge,  indeed,  is  the  potent  instrumen 
tality,  after  all,  most  essential  to  draw  out  the  latent 
capabilities  of  the  soul.  For  lack  of  knowledge  many  a 
Sheridan,  unconscious  of  his  powers,  may  have  gone 
down  voiceless  to  his  grave ;  many  a  Milton,  "  mute  and 
inglorious,"  may  have  passed  away  without  a  song ;  pos 
sibly,  many  a  Newton,  though  the  world  has  known  but 
one,  may  have  innocently  held  all  his  life  the  Ptolemean 
philosophy ;  and  many  a  Brahe,  or  a  Bessel,  or  a  Her- 
schel,  may  have  attained  to  no  greater  intimacy  with  the 
stars  of  heaven  than  was  enjoyed  by  the  Chaldean  shep 
herds  whom  they  "  gladdened  on  their  mountain  tops," 
in  their  solitary  night-watches.  If  there  is  native  genius 


80  LETTER. 

in  Mississippi,  how  without  knowledge,  here  any  more 
than  elsewhere,  can  that  genius  waken  into  activity, 
ripen  into  strength,  soar  into  celebrity?  And  if  the 
opportunity  is  not  here  offered  for  the  attainment  of  that 
knowledge  which  is  so  necessary  to  distinction,  how  or 
where  shall  it  be  obtained  ? 

It  is  no  reply  to  say  that  philosophers  have  sprung 
up  independently  of  schools ;  and  have  grown  famous 
without  the  aid  of  masters.  The  surface  of  the  scientific 
field  has  been  long  since  skimmed;  and  the  original, 
unaided,  and  unschooled  investigator  must  begin  always 
at  the  surface.  When  the  gold  lies  in  nuggets,  exposed 
to  view,  the  first  adventurer  may  pick  it  up  and  make  it 
his  own.  The  Chaldean  could  sit  upon  his  hill-top,  and 
become  an  astronomer  as  he  watched  his  flock.  From 
Hipparchus  to  Tycho  Brahe,  instrumental  observation, 
though  it  had  created  the  science  anew,  continued  to  be 

O  / 

of  the  rudest  kind,  and  anybody  might  employ  it.  Since 
Brahe's  time,  such  has  been  the  progress  of  improvement, 
that  to-day,  no  man  can  become  a  practical  astronomer, 
except  within  the  walls  of  a  regular  observatory.  There 
may  be  those  who  believe  that,  if  we  have  youth  among 
us  of  scientific  tastes,  and  scientific  ambitions,  it  is  of  no 
sort  of  importance  whether  they  be  drawn  out  and  en 
couraged  to  labor  for  distinction  to  themselves  and  to 
their  native  State  or  not.  With  such,  the  undersigned 
can  hold  no  argument,  since  the  parties  have  no  common 
ground  on  which  to  meet.  The  value,  no  less  to  a 
people  than  to  individuals,  of  an  honorable  reputation, 


LETTER.  81 

must  be  admitted,  or  every  discussion,  involving  any  "but 
the  most  mercenary  motives  of  action,  must  fall  to  the 
ground. 

Will  it,  then,  be  said  that  the  sources  of  the  knowl 
edge  which  has  been  represented  as  so  valuable,  will 
not  be  wanting  to  the  ambitious  aspirant,  even  though 
Mississippi  should  fail  to  furnish  it  ?  Will  it  be  said 
that  other  States  and  other  institutions  have  already 
made  the  provision  which  is  here  demanded  ;  and  that 
our  youth  may  enjoy  all  the  advantages  which  can  be 
desired,  without  subjecting  iis  to  additional  expense? 
The  remark  is  sufficiently  true  as  to  its  facts ;  but  is  not 
by  any  means  so  as  to  its  inferences.  The  aspirant  for 
scientific  distinction  can,  it  is  admitted,  seek  sources  of 
information  elsewhere,  after  he  begins  to  aspire;  but 
what  we  want  are  the  instrumentalities  by  which  his 
aspirations  are  to  be  awakened.  The  benefits  of  distant 
institutions  may  be  enjoyed  by  those  who  will  go  to  a 
distance  to  find  them ;  but  none  will  go  who  have  no 
previously  excited  interest  in  the  thing  they  seek. 

Will  it  again  be  objected  that,  after  all,  there  can  be 
but  few  at  most,  who  will  devote  themselves  with  ardor 
to  the  pursuit  of  high  learning,  or  the  prosecution  of 
profound  investigation — too  few  to  deserve  that  we 
should  make  a  special  provision  for  them.  The  objec 
tion  in  its  premises  will  be  once  more  admitted  without 
hesitation ;  but  the  justice  or  reasonableness  of  its  con 
clusion  will  be  wholly  denied.  Were  all  men  to  become 
philosophers,  there  would  be  no  philosophers ;  were  all 


82  LETTER. 

men  to  become  learned,  there  would  be  no  learned  men. 
Who  does  not  remember,  and  who  does  not  feel,  the  deep 
wisdom  of  the  remark  of  the  judicious  and  liberal- 
minded  Huger,  of  South  Carolina,  on  occasion  of  a  pow 
erful  vindication  before  the  legislature  of  that  State,  by 
the  youthful  M'Duffie,  of  the  college  which  educated 
him — a  remark  which  has  not  been  so  often  repeated 
but  that  it  will  bear  repetition  again:  "Had  the  col«- 
lege,"  said  Judge  Huger,  "  never  done  the  State  a  single 
service  except  to  educate  that  young  man,  she  would 
have  made  an  ample  return  for  all  the  money  that  has 
ever  been  lavished  on  her."  If  any  thing  is  needed  to 
dispose  of  the  objection  thus  suggested,  it  may  be  found 
in  the  spirit  of  this  observation.  Comment  would  only 
weaken  the  argument. 

It  is  held,  then,  that  the  measures  of  higher  develop 
ment  to  which  it  is  proposed  that  the  University  of 
Mississippi  should  now  begin  to  conform  her  policy,  will 
be  attended  with  at  least  one  recognizable,  tangible, 
definable  advantage.  Let  us  inquire  whether  there  be 
no  other. 

II.  Throughout  the  entire  South,  for  the  past  twenty 
years,  and  in  the  years  immediately  preceding  the 
present,  with  an  intensity  constantly  growing,  we  have 
heard  continually  the  demand  earnestly  uttered  in  every 
quarter,  that  Southern  youth  should  be  educated  in 
Southern  institutions  of  learning.  From  the  press,  from 
the  platform,  from  the  pulpit,  from  the  legislative 
benches,  and  from  the  executive  chair,  in  our  own  and 


LETTER 


in  every  neighboring  State,  one  unanimous  and  emphatic 
expression  of  opinion  on  this  subject  has  proceeded,  each 
confirming  and  strengthening  the  rest,  and  altogether 
forming  a  solid  and  compact  mass,  of  public  sentiment 
which  cannot  be  mistaken.  And  the  public  sentiment 
is  right.  If  we  had  no  peculiar  interests  to  render  the 
home  education  of  our  youth  specially  important  to  us, 
it  would  unquestionably  be  the  part  of  the  highest 
wisdom  to  rear  up  our  youth  to  manhood  among  the 
scenes  with  which  they  are  to  be  in  life  identified.  The 
ulterior  value  of  early  acquaintances  and  of  the  ties  of 
college  friendship,  is  too  great  to  be  thrown  indifferently 
away,  as  it  is  thrown  away  to  every  useful  purpose  when 
a  youth  is  educated  a  thousand  miles  from  his 
home,  unless  in  view  of  some  great  countervailing  ad 
vantage. 

o 

Few  Southern  parents  can  be  found,  who  are  not 
ready  to  admit  the  truth  of  all  this.  And  yet  a  great 
many  Southern  parents  are  found,  who  still  send  their 
children  away,  not  merely  to  other  Southern  States,  but 
to  New  Jersey,  to  New  York,  and  to  New  England. 
What  reason  shall  be  assigned  for  this  ?  Is  there  any 
describable  benefit  which  these  parents  expect  to  secure, 
by  a  measure  so  in  conflict  with  public  sentiment  all 
about  them  ?  And  if  there  is,  is  there  any  benefit  suf 
ficient  to  countervail  the  great  and  obvious  evil  of  fore 
going  home  influences,  destroying  home  associations, 
renouncing  home  friendships  ?  Certainly  they  believe 
that  there  is  ;  and  this  advantage  they  believe  that  they 


84:  LETTER. 

find  in  superior  institutions,  and  superior  means  and  ap 
pliances  for  the  communication  of  knowledge.  Is  their 
belief  correct  ? 

If  we  trust  the  testimony  of  our  presses,  if  we  yield 
credit  to  the  expressed  convictions  of  our  fellow-citizens 
on  every  side,  we  shall  be  slow  to  admit  that  there  are 
anywhere  to  be  found  educational  advantages  superior 
to  those  which  we  possess.  Not  a  public  exhibition  can 
be  held  in  any  Southern  college,  not  a  public  examina 
tion  can  take  place  in  any  Southern  school,  without 
eliciting  a  volume  of  delighted  and  exultant  praise,  which 
exhausts  the  vocabulary  of  panegyric,  and  leaves  the 
enthusiastic  commentator  and  critic  at  a  loss  for  words. 
We  have  no  such  thing  as  a  second-rate  school  among 
us.  We  have  no  such  thing  as  a  school  with  its  strong 
points  and  its  weak  points.  All  our  schools  are  strong 
—they  have  no  weak  points.  Their  strength  is  capable 
of  expression  only  in  the  superlative  degree;  they  are 
superlative  in  general  excellence,  and  all  their  parts, 
their  departments,  their  operations,  their  accommoda 
tions,  their  apparatus  and  their  personnel  are  superlative 
also.  Our  system  is  the  wisest  system,  our  discipline  is 
the  most  judicious  discipline,  our  Faculties  are  the  ablest 
Faculties,  and  our  scholars  are  the  very  most  proficient 
scholars,  the  world  ever  saw.  To  sum  up  all  in  one 
grand  expressive  word — our  advantages — a  term  of  con 
venient  comprehensiveness,  into  the  meaning  of  which 
it  is  well  not  too  curiously  to  inquire, — our  advantages 
surpass  by  far  all  ever  before  offered,  in  any  age  of  the 


LETTER.  35 

world,  or  in  any  community,  to  the  appreciative  patron 
age  of  an  enlightened  public. 

This  can  hardly  be  called  a  caricature.  Scarcely  a 
word  or  sentence  has  been  employed,  of  which  the 
counterpart  may  not  be  found  in  the  columns  of  the 
Southern  press,  passim  ;  and  as  to  the  sentiment  of  the 
whole,  it  is  the  most  familiar  of  all  that  salute  our  ears. 
Who  ever  heard  of  a  college  or  a  school  of  any  preten 
sions  within  our  borders,  which  was  not  all  that  is  here 
described  ?  Now,  the  total  absence  of  every  thing  like  a 
discriminating,  or  appreciative,  or  just  mode  of  dealing 
with  the  claims  and  merits  of  our  institutions  of  learn 
ing,  on  the  part  of  those  who  undertake  to  direct  public 
opinion,  is  pernicious  in  a  variety  of  ways.  It  checks  in 
the  institutions  themselves  the  spirit  of  improvement; 
since  if  they  can  so  cheaply  win  the  guerdon  of  super 
lative  praise,  they  will  hardly  think  it  worth  their  while 
to  labor  for  a  substantial  merit  which  nobody  appre 
ciates.  It  misleads,  most  unhappily,  the  public  mind,  by 
producing  a  contented  faith  in  a  merit  which  is  in  too 
many  cases,  more  imaginary  than  real ;  and  thus  avert 
ing  from  the  institutions  that  outside  pressure,  which  is 
the  most  effectual  stimulus  to  internal  improvement. 
But,  finally,  it  is  clearly  seen  through  by  the  well-edu 
cated  and  intelligent,  and  dispassionately  judging  among 
ourselves;  who,  disgusted  with  hyperbole,  and  anxious 
for  a  little  honest  fact,  send,  therefore,  their  children  to 
distant  institutions,  of  long-standing  and  undoubted 
character;  reconciling  themselves,  as  well  as  they  can, 


86  LETTER. 

to  the  unwelcome  necessity,  by  the  consideration  that  if 
their  children  are  denied  the  benefit  of  an  education  at 
home,  they  will  at  least  enjoy  the  benefit  of  an  educa 
tion. 

But,  after  all,  have  we  no  institutions  capable  of 
thoroughly  educating  our  own  youth  upon  our  own  soil  ? 
It  is  not  the  undersigned  who  has  assumed  so  broad  a 
ground  as  that  we  have  not.  It  is  only  those  Southern 
parents  who,  bewildered  by  the  system  of  universal 
laudation  which  prevails  among  us,  are  unable  to  dis 
cover  whether  we  have  or  not ;  and  so  cut  the  knot  at 
once,  by  withholding  their  patronage  equally  from  all. 
But  dismissing  for  a  moment  the  question  here  raised,  in 
so  far  as  it  relates  to  that  branch  of  education  which 
has  been  distinguished  as  disciplinary,  it  is  an  opinion 
which  the  undersigned  is  compelled  to  entertain,  that,  in 
regard  to  all  that  relates  to  the  second,  or  doctrinal, 
branch,  there  is  not  at  present — unless  by  the  enlightened 
action  of  your  honorable  body,  within  the  last  two 
years,  an  exception  may  be  fairly  assumed  to  have  been 
created  here — an  institution  of  learning  in  all  the  South, 
which  can  justly  claim  for  itself  an  undeniable  equality 
of  merit  with  any  one  of  several  of  the  older  colleges 
of  the  North;  much  less  one  entitled  to  arrogate  to 
itself  superlatives  of  praise. 

To  you,  Gentlemen,  is  certainly  to  be  awarded  high 
honor  for  your  distinct  perception  of  these  things,  and 
for  the  energetic  measures  which  you  have  taken,  and 
are  still  taking,  to  remove  one  Southern  institution  at 


LETTER.  87 

least  from  the  sweeping  category.  It  is  not,  therefore, 
to  you  that  the  undersigned  feels  bound  to  apologize  for 
the  plainness  of  his  speech.  To  his  fellow-citizens  he 
would  say  that  if  the  language  here  held  is  more  novel 
than  complimentary,  this  is  only  because,  in  order  that 
we  may  mend  our  deficiencies,  it  is  necessary  first  that 
we  should  look  them  distinctly  in  the  face. 

What,  then,  is  it  which  leads  so  many  Southern  pa 
rents  to  prefer  Northern  institutions  to  their  own  ?  If 
there  is  difference  of  merit,  in  what  does  the  difference 
consist?  All  the  educational  advantages  which  institu 
tions  of  learning  present  to  seekers  after  knowledge, 
must  be  traceable  to  one  or  other  of  the  three  follow 
ing  heads  :  1.  The  personal  ability  of  teachers  ;  2.  The 
material  and  instrumental  means  and  appliances  auxil 
iary  to  instruction;  and  3.  The  methods.  »The  third 
and  last  of  these  heads  may  be  at  once  dismissed,  since 
the  practical  methods  of  instruction  in  all  our  colleges, 
instrumental  illustrations  apart,  are  so  similar  that  the 
consideration  of  methods  of  instruction  is  rarely  the 
determining  one  in  the  mind  of  a  parent.  The  first 
deserves  to  be  dwelt  on  a  little  more  maturely.  The 
personal  reputation  of  a  teacher  highly  distinguished 
for  his  attainments  in  letters  or  science,  not  seldom 
weighs  much  in  a  question  of  this  kind ;  but  when  we 
consider  in  how  many  of  our  colleges,  from  Virginia  to 
Louisiana,  there  are  really  teachers  of  eminent  ability, 
well-known  learning,  or  profound  science,  we  must  be 


88  LETTER. 

satisfied  that  it  is  not  here  that  we  are  to  look  for  the 
solution  of  our  present  difficulty. 

What  then  remains,  if  it  be  not  the  imperfect  pro 
vision  which  exists  in  so  many  of  our  colleges,  as  com 
pared  with  those  in  the  North  to  which  Southern  youth 
chiefly  resort,  in  regard  to  the  material  and  instrumental 
means  of  imparting  knowledge  mainly  upon  subjects  of 
physical  and  chemical  science,  of  geology,  mineralogy 
and  natural  history,  all  of  them  matters  esteemed,  in  the 
present  age  of  the  world,  to  possess  a  high  practical 
value,  and  of  which,  under  the  galloping  system  of 
teaching  already  abundantly  signalized  in  this  letter,  it 
is  only  by  the  aid  of  th*e  most  ample  illustration  that 
any  thing  can  be  really  taught  at  all. 

There  need  be  no  hesitancy  in  saying  that  our 
Southern  colleges,  as  a  class,  are  in  this  respect  gen 
erally  deficient.  They  may  occupy  eligible  locations ; 
they  may  possess  learned  and  able  teachers ;  in  what 
relates  to  mental  training  and  discipline — to  education, 
in  short,  in  the  proper  and  literal  sense  of  that  word — 
they  may  be  entitled  to  all  the  praise  they  claim  ;  but,  as 
to  the  second  branch  of  their  business,  as  to  instruction, 
as  distinguished  from  education,  and  as  to  their  means 

O  7 

of  making  it  clear,  comprehensive,  and  thorough — their 
libraries,  their  philosophical  and  chemical  apparatus 
their  collections  illustrative  of  the  mineral,  vegetable, 
and  animal  kingdoms, — as  to  these  things,  the  contrast 
between  them  and  those  richly  endowed  and  venerable, 
institutions  which  so  many  Southern  parents  prefer,  is  so 


LETTER.  gQ 

glaring  as  to  throw  itself  upon  our  notice,  whether  we 
will  regard  it  or  not. 

What  is  the  remedy  ?  Not  denunciation,  surely — 
not  reproach — not  crimination.  No  !  Instead  of  all  this, 
it  is  to  throw  around  our  own  institutions  precisely  the 
same  attractions,  and  without  any  exception  all  the  at 
tractions,  which  exist  elsewhere  to  draw  our  youth  away. 
It  will  cost  money — true ;  but  then  the  money  will  be 
well  expended.  From  a  pretty  extensive  examination  of 
college  catalogues,  the  undersigned  is  prepared  to  believe 
that  not  fewer  than  two  hundred  Mississippi  youth  are 
now  constantly  pursuing  their  education  beyond  the 
limits  of  the  State ;  many  of  them,  it  is  true,  in  Southern 
colleges,  but  colleges  supposed  to  be  better  provided 
than  ours  with  the  instrumentalities  necessary  to  the 
satisfactory  presentation  of  subjects  of  physical  science. 
The  offer  of  sufficient  counter-attractions  here,  may  rea 
sonably  be  presumed  likely  to  detain  hereafter  at  least 
one  hundred  of  this  number  at,  home.  Now,  the  education 
of  every  such  student  may,  without  extravagance,  be 
estimated  to  cost — tuition,  and  living,  and  clothing,  and 
books,  and  travelling  to  and  fro,  to  say  nothing  of 
pocket  expenditures,  being  included — not  less  than  six 
hundred  dollars  per  annum ;  so  that  a  total  sum  of  one 
hund  ed  and  twenty  thousand  dollars  is  annually  raised 
in  Mississippi  and  expended  abroad,  of  which  one  half 
at  least  might  be  just  as  well  retained  at  home. 

And  this  sum,  if  not  more,  as  a  consequence  of  the 
judicious,  and  thoughtful,  and  far-seeing  policy  which 


90  LETTER. 

has  prompted  the  expenditure  of  a  much  less  consider 
able  amount  in  strengthening  the  University  of  Missis 
sippi  in  the  point  where  strength  has  been  most  needed, 
probably  will  incoming  years  be  saved  to  the  State. 
Having  brought  into  so  strong  relief,  what  is  believed  to 
be  the  •  principal  cause  of  the  want  of  popularity  of 
Southern  colleges  with  Southern  men,  the  undersigned 
would  commit  an  unpardonable  oversight,  were  he  not 
to  express  his  conviction  that  this  University  is,  to-day, 
in  possession  of  a  philosophical  and  chemical  apparatus 
as  a  whole  without  a  superior  on  the  continent,  and  in 
many  of  its  details  unequalled  ;  that  it  possesses  a  mine 
ral  collection  of  which  the  rare  beauty  of  the  specimens 
is  rivalled  only  in  the  richest  cabinets  of  the  country ; 
and  that  in  conchology  it  has  a  treasure  to  which  no  simi 
lar  institution  in  the  United  States  can  present  a  parallel. 
Much  of  what  is  here  described,  though  provided  by 
your  own  order,  has  not  yet  been  presented  to  your  in 
spection.  At  your  next  assembling,  you  will  have  the 
satisfaction  of  seeing  one  Southern  college,  which,  in 
regard  to  the  most  important  and  popular  branches  of 
physical  science,  will  present  every  attraction  to  the 
learner  which  can  be  offered  by  the  oldest  and  best 
appointed  in  the  entire  country. 

Astronomy  yet  remains  to  be  provided  for.  That 
portion  of  the  plan  of  improvement  sanctioned  at  your 
meeting  in  July,  1856,  which  relates  to  this  science,  has 
as  yet  but  imperfectly  been  carried  into  execution. 
Your  observatory  remains  incomplete,  and  instruments 


LETTER.  91 

for  observation  remain  unprovided.  Now,  whatever  may 
be  the  opinions  men  may  entertain  in  regard  to  the  im 
portance  of  creating  facilities  for  forming  an  acquaintance 
with  the  heavens  in  connection  with  our  colleges,  how 
ever  superciliously  men  may  regard  practical  astronomy 
for  its  own  sake,  nobody  can  deny  that  the  possession  of 
such  facilities  does  actually  contribute  to  the  considera 
tion  in  which  the  institutions  where  they  exist  are  held; 
nobody  can  deny  that  they  are  really  attractions  which 
exercise  a  powerful  influence  upon  the  imagination,  and 
that  they  are  positively  effective  in  securing  patronage. 
At  the  meeting  of  1856,  to  which  allusion  has  just  been 
made,  it  is  believed  that  every  member  of  your  honora 
ble  body  who  was  present  was  fully  satisfied  of  the  cor 
rectness  of  this  principle,  viz  :  that  whatever  attractions, 
no  matter  of  what  kind,  may  exist  elsewhere,  to  draw 
the  youth  of  Mississippi  away  to  institutions  of  learning 
foreign  to  the  State,  the  same  attractions  ought  to  be 
created  here,  simply  because  they  are  attractions.  It  is 
believed  that  it  was*  then  admitted  without  controversy 
to  be  unnecessary  to  discuss  in  labored  detail  the  intrin 
sic  merits  of  every  specific  measure  of  improvement  pro 
posed,  provided  it  could  be  said  of  it  that  it  is  a  meas 
ure  which  other  and  distant  colleges  have  adopted,  and 
which  is  capable  of  being  urged  as  evidence  of  the  supe 
riority  of  those  institutions  by  citizens  of  our  own  State 
who  choose  to  patronize  them.  Not  that,  by  acting  on 
this  principle,  we  are  really  in  danger  of  adopting  any 
measure  intrinsically  useless ;  but  that  the  principle 


92  L  E  T  T  E  B  . 

affords  a  short  cut  to  a  good  and  sufficient  reason  for 
what  we  do,  and  sets  aside  the  necessity  for  many  and 
weary  words. 

Now,  from  the  manner  in  which  the  measures  pro 
posed  here  in  regard  to  practical  astronomy  have  been 
spoken  of  by  some,  one  would  imagine  it  to  be  an  un 
precedented  thing  for  a  college  in  the  United  States  to 
possess  an  observatory.  And  yet  there  are  nearly  a 
dozen  American  colleges  fully  provided  in  this  respect, 
in  most  or  all  of  which  active  observation  is  constantly 
kept  up ;  and  among  the  number  are  three  or  four  pos 
sessing  instruments  which  rank  among  the  most  magnifi 
cent  in  the  world.  Nothing  is  aimed  at  in  the  University 
of  Mississippi  more  than  all  these  colleges  have  already 
done;  and  if  the  propriety  of  carrying  out  to  completion 
the  measures  initiated  in  1856,  be  rested  on  no  higher 
ground  than  that  of  the  self-interest  which  should 
prompt  us  to  endeavor  to  clothe  ourselves  with  all 
the  attractions  which  other  institutions  possess,  further 
argument  would  seem  to  be  unnecessary. 

At  any  rare,  it  is  quite  undeniable  that  there  is  but 
one  way  in  which  we  can  put  ourselves  entirely  in  the 
right,  when  we  demand  of  Southern  parents  that  they 
shall  educate  their  sons  at  home ;  and  that  is  by  follow 
ing  out  the  policy  indicated  above,  no  matter  to  what 
results  it  may  lead  us,  no  matter  what  measures  it  may 
force  upon  us.  So  long  as  we  leave  any  opening  what 
ever  for  such  parents  to  say  that  we  fail  to  provide  here 
the  advantages,  and  all  the  advantages,  which  can  be 


LETTER.  93 

found  elsewhere,  so  long  we  must  refrain  from  reproach 
ing  them  if  they  see  fit  to  resist  the  temptations  we  do 
really  lay  before  them,  and  still  pass  us  by  to  prefer  the 
North. 

There  remain  two  further  considerations  only,  which 
the  undersigned  desires,  before  concluding,  to  suggest  as 
matters  of  reflection.  One  of  these  has  reference  to  our 
feelings  of  honorable  pride ;  the  other,  to  our  sense  of 
duty. 

III.  And  first,  as  to  our  pride.  We  certainly  cannot 
but  desire  that  the  institution  in  which  we  all  of  us  feel 
so  deep  an  interest  shall  not  only  accomplish  a  good 
and  useful  work,  but  that  it  shall  build  up  for  itself  an 
honorable  and  enviable  reputation.  There  is  not  a 
Mississippian  anywhere,  in  whom  it  would  not  excite  a 
feeling  of  proud  exultation  to  hear  the  University  of  the 
State  of  which  he  is  a  citizen,  spoken  of  by  people 
at  a  distance  in  terms  of  respect  and  admiration.  It  is 
folly  to  affect  contempt  for  a  consideration  of  this  kind. 
When  character  losesits  value  in  the  minds  of  men,  the 
basis  of  all  motive  to  improvement,  the  stimulus  to  all 
honorable  aspiration,  is  swept  away.  The  love  of  ap 
probation  is  implanted  in  our  natures  by  God  himself; 
and  so  long  as  those  natures  remain  unchanged,  so  long 
will  it  be  a  legitimate  argument  in  favor  of  any  act 
or  any  measure,  that  it  is  adapted  to  secure  the  good 
opinions  of  mankind. 

Now,  the  only  infallible  mode  of  acquiring  an  honor 
able  reputation,  and  a  reputation  which  shall  be  not 


94:  LETTER. 

only  honorable  but  permanent,  is  to  deserve  it.  And 
our  desert  is  measured  not  merely  by  the  degree  of  our 
well-doing  in  that  which  we  do,  but  also  no  less  by  the 
loftiness  of  our  aims,  and  the  magnitude  of  our  at 
tempts.  If  we  confine  our  views  to  the  comparatively 
humble  object  of  training  boyish  intellects,  and  do  this 
faithfully  and  successfully,  we  shall  have  accomplished 
a  good  work,  and  have  entitled  ourselves  to  be  well 
spoken  of;  but  our  reputation  will  correspond  with  the 
grade  of  our  labor,  and  will  hardly  overpass  the  bound 
aries  of  our  own  State.  But  if  our  ambitions  are  more 
aspiring,  and  we  aim  to  satisfy  the  cravings  of  maturer 
minds ;  if,  not  content  with  an  humble  station  in  the 
vestibule  of  the  temple  of  science,  we  pass  the  sublime 
portals,  and  plant  ourselves  as  ministers  at  the  radiant 
shrine  itself, — then,  if  our  success  be  in  any  manner  pro 
portioned  to  our  daring,  we  shall  have  accomplished  a 
much  greater  work  than  the  former,  and  have  assured 
to  ourselves  a  wider  consideration,  which  it  depends 
only  on  ourselves  to  exalt  into  celebrity.  Of  this  fact 
we  may  be  well  assured,  that  the  attention  of  men 
will  be  drawn  to  us  just  in  proportion  as  the  level  on 
which  we  choose  to  plant  ourselves  is  more  elevated. 
In  this  respect  there  is  an  analogy  between  moral  and 
material  things.  That  object  is  ever  most  conspicuous 
whose  position  is  highest.  A  city  in  a  valley  may  easily 
be  overlooked ;  but  the  city  which  is  set  on  a  hill  can 
not  be  hid. 

Nor  must  we  overlook  the  reflex  influence  upon  the 


LETTER.  95 

instructor  himself  wliicli  must  Le  consequent  upon  in 
creasing  the  dignity  of  his  task.  In  the  ordinary  rou 
tine  of  collegiate  instruction,  there  is  little  to  stimulate 
the  teacher  to  self- improvement,  or  to  inspire  him  with 
the  ambition  to  make  larger  attainments  than  are  neces 
sary  to  fit  him  for  the  business  of  conducting  the  daily 
examinations  of  the  recitation-room.  It  has  already 
been  pointed  out  in  what  manner  the  system  of  college 
instruction  wThich  depends  on  examination  exclusively, 
tends  to  repress  the  properly  teaching  spirit ;  it  may  be 
added,  as  a  circumstance  no  less  to  be  lamented,  that 
it  actually  furnishes  a  screen  to  the  deficiencies  of  the 
teacher.  There  is  indeed  no  disposition  to  deny  that 
an  honest  and  conscientious  man  who  feels  himself  de 
ficient,  may  endeavor  to  improve,  out  of  a  mere  sense  of 
duty.  It  is,  on  the  other  hand,  freely  admitted  that 
men  may,  if  they  will,  be  personally  as  proficient  under 
one  system  as  under  another ;  but  all  this  does  not  make 
it  the  less  true  that  men  in  every  situation  are  influenced 
by  circumstances,  as  well  as  by  principle  and  the  sense 
of  duty ;  that  different  systems  do  not  equally  stimulate 
men  to  effort ;  and  that,  in  the  long  run,  it  will  gener 
ally  be  found — a  consequence  probably  of  the  weakness 
of  human  nature — that  the  aggregate  of  performance  in 
the  discharge  of  duty  is  proportioned  more  to  the  force 
of  external  influences  than  to  the  weight  of  moral  obli 
gation.  In  proportion  as  the  duty  of  the  instructor  is 
of  higher  grade,  in  proportion  as  it  involves  the  neces 
sity  of  larger  attainments,  in  the  same  proportion  he 


96  LETTER. 

must  himself  rise,  and  the  comprehensiveness  of  his 
knowledge  must  be  wider.  And  if  at  the  same  time 

o 

the  system  of  instruction  to  which  he  is  obliged  to 
conform  be  such  that,  instead  of  permitting  him  to  act 
the  part  of  a  mere  listener  to  the  performances  of  his 
pupils,  it  compels  him  to  be  himself  the  living  expositor 
of  his  subject,  then  he  is  brought  under  the  influence  of 
the  highest  stimulus  to  exertion  by  which  a  man  in  his 
position  can  possibly  be  actuated,  the  ambition  to  attain 
an  honorable  personal  reputation ;  an  ambition  secretly 
reinforced  by  the  consciousness  that  to  be  deficient  is  to 
incur  inevitable  exposure,  and  that  to  be  exposed  is  to 
be  disgraced. 

Nor  in  vindicating  the  policy  of  aiming  to  elevate 
the  grade  of  teaching  in  the  University  of  Mississippi, 
are  we  without  an  argument  of  a  more  utilitarian,  or, 
as  it  may  perhaps  be  called,  a  more  mercenary  charac 
ter.  If  it  is  true  that,  in  thus  elevating  our  aims,  we 
may  reasonably  hope  to  secure  for  the  institution  a 
higher,  a  more  honorable,  and  a  more  extended  reputa 
tion,  it  cannot  but  be  anticipated,  as  a  necessary  conse 
quence,  that  the  number  of  those  who  resort  here  for 
instruction  will  correspondingly  increase.  In  this  con 
sideration  we  may  find  a  justification,  not  merely  of  the 
measure  now  immediately  under  discussion,  but  of  every 
measure  of  improvement,  and  of  every  expenditure  of 
every  kind,  which  creates  here  a  new  attraction  to 
counteract  those  other  attractions  which  are  continually 
drawing  the  youth  of  Mississippi  to  distant  colleges 


LETTER.  97 

The  undersigned  is  well  aware  with  how  grave  mis 
givings  the  expenditures  made  for  the  sake  of  improving 
the  internal  efficiency  of  colleges,  and  their  general  at 
tractiveness  to  students,  are  often  regarded  by  outside 
observers.  But  really  such  expenditures  are  among  the 
most  judicious  investments  that  can  possibly  be  made ; 
and  sooner  or  later  they  infallibly  pay  for  themselves. 
A  slight  permanent  increase  of  the  number  of  students 
will  in  clue  time  reimburse  the  treasury  for  a  large 
expenditure;  a  larger  increase  will  do  it  sooner;  and 
when  it  is  done,  the  objects  of  the  investment  will  be 
come  a  permanent  addition  to  the  capital,  while  the 
income  will  be  increased  by  a  perpetual  annuity.  Sup 
pose,  for  example,  one  thousand  dollars  to  be  applied  in 
some  such  way  as  to  be  a  means  of  adding  a  single  stu 
dent  to  each  class  in  college.  Form  the  annual  pay 
ments  of  these  additional  students,  which  are  made  at 
the  beginning  of  each  year  in  advance,  into  a  sinking 
fund,  and  the  debt  with  interest  will  be  cancelled  in  five 
years;  after  which  the  revenue  of  the  institution  will 
be  permanently  increased  about  two  hundred  dollars 
per  annum. 

In  speculating  on  a  matter  of  this  kind,  we  must  con 
sider  that  it  is  always  quite  impossible  to  say  precisely 
what  increase  of  number  has  been  effected  by  any 
given  measure  of  improvement,  whether  it  be  one  which 
involves  expenditure  or  not.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
when  improvement  is  followed  by  increase  of  number, 
it  is  equally  impossible  to  doubt  the  reality  of  a  con- 
7 


98  >  LETTER. 

nection  between  tlie  two  events  in  the  relation  of  cause 
and  effect ;  and  when  this  increase  is  considerable,  it 
needs  no  very  great  arithmetical  ability  to  demonstrate 
that  the  money  it  may  have  cost  has  been  well  laid 
out. 

Nor  need  this  assertion  be  deemed  inconsistent  with 
what  has  already  been  said,  of  the  impossibility  of  sus 
taining  colleges  upon  fees  alone.  It  must  be  considered 
that  there  are  certain  large  investments  which  must  be 
made  in  the  very  beginning,  in  order  that  the  college 
may  exist.  These  are  locked  up  in  buildings  and 
grounds,  or  take  the  form  of  foundations  for  professor 
ships.  Now,  the  number  of  students  may  very  largely 
vary,  without  occasioning  any  material  variation  in  the 
amount  thus  invested.  If  we  suppose  that  all  necessary 
buildings  are  provided,  and  that  some  of  the  officers,  at 
least,  are  supported  by  the  endowment,  then  the  tuition 
fees  constitute  a  fluctuating  source  of  revenue,  which 
may  largely  increase  before  there  need  be  any  material 
increase  of  expenditure.  Hence,  though  it  is  a  fact 
that  collegiate  education  is  furnished  below  its  cost,  this 
does  not  make  it,  as  at  first  thought  this  statement 
might  lead  one  to  suppose,  like  other  kinds  of  losing 
business,  a  source  of  larger  loss  in  proportion  as  more 
of  it  is  done.  There  is,  on  the  other  hand,  at  present 
rates  of  tuition,  low  as  they  are,  a  pecuniary  advantage 
in  having  many  students ;  and  hence  it  is  a  wise  economy 
which  expends  money  in  adding  to  the  educational 
advantages  offered  by  any  institution  of  learning,  since 


LETTER.  99 

the  inevitable  result  of  such  expenditures  is  to  attract 
increase  of  patronage. 

Tims  far  it  has  been  argued,  that  the  measure  of 
improvement  recommended  in  this  communication  will 
only  react  advantageously  upon  the  reputation  of  the 
University,  and  thus  secure  certain  specific  advantages 
to  the  institution  itself.  But  this  is  by  no  means  all ; 
the  effect  will  not  stop  here,  but  will  extend  in  a  sensi 
ble  degree  to  the  people  of  the  entire  State.  It  is,  in  a 
great  degree,  through  their  institutions,  that  the  charac 
ters  of  communities  are  judged.  There  is  no  institu 
tion  in  Mississippi,  and  evidently  there  can  be  none, 
whose  aspect,  in  the  eyes  of  distant  observers,  will  ever 
present  a  more  significant  or  decisive  indication  of  the 
intelligence  of  our  people,  than  tha£  of  this  University. 
Whatever  raises  the  character  of  the  University,  raises 
the  State  in  the  consideration  of  mankind.  There  are 
reasons  why,  in  the  nature  of  things,  it  must  be  so. 
The  University,  as  the  chief  educational  institution  of 
the  State,  will  ultimately  determine  the  kind  and  grade 
of  teaching  in  all  other  schools  ;  and  the  popular  en 
lightenment  must  always  maintain  a  certain  definite 
relation  to  the  character  of  the  schools  in  which  the 
people  are  taught.  Distant  observers  will  judge  of  the 
invisible  effect,  by  the  visible  cause.  If  the  University 
stands  high  in  a  literary  and  scientific  point  of  view,  the 
inference  is  a  natural  one,  that  it  cannot  be  other  than 
an  intelligent  people  whose  educational  training  is  sub 
ject  to  such  a,  control.  There  is  another  mode  of  view- 


100  LETTER. 

ing  the  subject,  from  which  the  same  inference  may  be 
drawn.  Regarding  the  University  not  as  acting  upon 
the  people,  but  as  being  acted  upon  by  them,  not  as 
determining  the  popular  character  for  intelligence,  but 
as  being  determined  in  its  own  character  by  the  popu 
lar  will,  it  will  follow  no  less  than  before,  that  precisely 
according  as  its  own  intellectual  position  is  assumed  at 
a  higher  or  lower  level,  the  repute  in  which  the  State 
itself  is  held  abroad  will  also  be  higher  or  loAver. 

This  topic  is  sufficiently  fertile  to  warrant  further 
expansion ;  but  already  this  letter  has  reached  an  ex 
tent  unanticipated,  and  larger  than  could  have  been 
desired.  A  few  words  only  will  therefore  be  added 
upon  the  remaining  point. 

IV.  The  measure  of  improvement  proposed,  recom 
mends  itself  to  our  sense  of  duty.  Whatever  may  be 
said  of  the  value  to  mankind  of  this  or  that  fact  of 
scientific  discovery,  or  of  this  or  that  achievement  of 
literary  genius,  there  can  be  no  sort  of  doubt  of  the 
general  truth  that  letters  and  science  have  actually 
made  men  both  happier  and  better.  If  we  extend  our 
views  no  further  than  to  what  concerns  the  physical 
comfort  of  the  race,  it  is  undeniable  that  all  the  ad 
vancement  the  world  has  ever  seen  has  been  due  first  of 
all  to  mental  improvement,  and  to  the  resulting  con 
quests  of  mind  over  matter.  Wide  as  is  the  interval 
which  divides  savage  from  civilized  life,  its  existence  is 
a  living  testimony  to  the  power  of  cultivated  intellect, 
of  which  exclusively  it  is  the  creation.  Now,  it  is  char- 


LETTER.  101 

acteristic  of  the  triumphs  of  mind,  that  their  resultant 
benefits  to  mankind  are  not  restricted  by  any  natural 
limitation  to  specific  localities  or,  to  particular  peoples. 
From  the  moment  in  which  they  are  achieved,  they  are 
equally  capable  of  contributing,  and  so  far  as  the  preju 
dices  and  perversity  of  the  race  will  permit,  they  do 
immediately  contribute,  to  the  well-being  of  all  nations, 
and  the  prosperity  of  all  lands.  It  is,  furthermore,  a 
dictate  of  the  sense  of  right  and  justice  innate  in  every 
rational  being,  that  the  reception  of  benefits  imposes  on 
the  recipient  reciprocal  obligations,  which  are  morally 
if  not  legally  binding.  In  return  for  the  protection 
thrown  around  us  by  the  civil  and  political  institutions 
under  which  we  live,  no  one  questions  that  it  is  the  duty 
of  every  citizen  to  contribute  to  the  support  of  govern, 
ment;  and  in  this  case,  as  the  security  of  society 
depends  upon  the  fulfilment  of  the  obligation,  the 
coercive  power  of  the  law  is  employed  to  reinforce  in 
men's  minds  the  too  often  inoperative  convictions  of 
duty.  Where  there  is  less  at  stake,  or  where  it  is  less 
easy  to  point  out  specifically  what  and  how  much  it 
belongs  to  each  individual  to  do  toward  the  discharge 
of  a  debt  in  which  all  are  debtors,  in  such  cases  if  the 
moral  sense  is  not  active  enough  to  stimulate  perform 
ance,  the  obligation  remains  unfulfilled.  But  in  such 
cases  it  is  far  nobler  to  obey  the  promptings  of  duty, 
than  in  those  in  which  the  option  is  taken  away;  pre. 
cisely  as  it  is  nobler  to  do  right  because  it  is  right,  than 
to  do  it  because  it  is  a  necessity. 


102  LETTER. 

And  in  precisely  this  condition  are  all  communities 
of  men  everywhere,  in  regard  to  and  in  consequence  of 
the  benefits  which  they  have  derived  from  the  softening 
influence  of  letters  in  ameliorating  manners,  and  the  all 
but  creative  power  of  science  in  improving  arts.  The 
obligation  rests  upon  every  people  who  have  been  par 
takers  of  the  vast  advantages  which  flow  from  intellec 
tual  illumination,  to  do  something  on  their  own  part  to 
feed  the  flame  whose  light  has  shone  so  gloriously  for 
them.  It  becomes,  in  short,  a  high-minded  people  to 
manifest  the  existence  within  itself  of  a  sentiment  loftier 
than  that  of  the  sluggish  selfishness  which  accepts  with 
out  hesitation  and  enjoys  without  scruple  whatever  cre 
ative  genius  has  produced  of  beautiful  or  useful,  yet 
never  on  its  own  part  aspires  to  create,  or  seeks  to  con 
tribute  to  the  potential  sources  of  human  happiness. 

Would  a  people  fulfil  its  duties  to  mankind  growing 
out  of  the  considerations  here  succinctly  presented,  it  is 
not  to  be  done  by  a  personal  contribution  to  the  great 
fund  of  literary  or  scientific  treasures  which  make  up 
the  intellectual  wealth  of  the  world,  on  the  part  of  each 
individual  member  of  society.  Enough  has  been  already 
said  to  show,  that  in  the  existing  state  of  the  world's 
advancement,  it  is  no  longer  in  the  power  of  the  occa 
sional  student  or  of  the  casual  observer,  to  forward  to 
any  material  degree  the  progress  of  either  literary  or 
scientific  improvement.  The  devotion  of  long  years  of 
faithful  industry  is  necessary  to  an  adequate  understand 
ing  of  the  existing  condition  of  the  field  of  labor;  and 


LETTER.  103 

evidently  no  champion  can  be  in  position  to  attack  the 
unknown  with  success,  until  he  shall  have  made  himself 
first  master  of  the  known.  Therefore  it  is,  that  the 
debt  which  every  enlightened  people  owe  to  the  world, 
in  return  for  the  benefits  which  they  themselves  have 
received  at  the  hands  of  science  and  good  learning,  can 
only  be  repaid  by  creating  the  instrumentalities  which 
shall  raise  up  among  themselves  scientific  and  learned 
men.  Such  men,  entering  the  field  of  original  and 
independent  investigation,  may  give  back  to  the  world 
at  least  a  modest  tribute  of  newly  discovered  truth, 
in  return  for  the  inestimable  treasure  of  accumulated 
knowledge  which  they  have  received  ;  and  in  doing  this 
they  will  at  the  same  time  draw  down  imperishable 
honor  on  the  people  by  whom  their  genius  has  been 
stimulated  to  activity,  and  on  the  land  which  their 
labors  have  made  illustrious. 

Is  it  possible  that  the  people  of  Mississippi  do  not 
recognize  the  obligation  which  it  is  attempted  here, 
imperfectly  and  feebly,  to  explain  and  to  bring  into 
relief?  Shall  we,  too,  illustrate  anew  to  the  world  the 
truth  of  the  tyrant's  dogma,  that  letters  wither,  that 
science  perishes,  beneath  the  mephitic  breath  of  repub 
lican  institutions  ?  Shall  it  continue  forever  to  be  the 
reproach  of  civil  liberty,  the  opprobrium  and  scandal 
of  democratic  governments,  that  they  are  unfavorable 
to  the  advancement  of  the  race  in  all  that  constitutes 
its  truest  grandeur  and  glory  ? 

There  are  pleas,  it  is  not  forgotten,  by  which  it  is 


104  LETTER. 

attempted  to  evade  or  break  the  force  of  appeals  like 
these.  Mississippi,  it  is  said,  is  still  in  her  infancy ;  and 
it  cannot  be  expected  of  her  that  she  should  undertake 
labors  such  as  have  marked  the  history  of  other  commu 
nities  only  in  the  maturity  of  their  powers.  But  in  this 
reasoning  there  lurks  a  certain  fallacy,  which  destroys 
all  its  force.  Considered  as  a  political  organization, 
Mississippi  is  indeed  an  infant  State ;  but  in  so  far  as 
the  word  infancy  as  applied  to  nations  is  understood  to 
imply  recent  emergence  from  barbarism,  or  a  present 
feeble  diffusion  of  intellectual  light,  Mississippi  is  not 
infant.  The  bulk  of  the  actual  population  of  this  State 
consisted  in  the  beginning,  as  a  great  portion  of  it  still 
consists,  of  natives  of  the  older  States  situated  upon  the 
Atlantic  coast,  whose  origin  dates  back  to  times  ante 
cedent  to  the  American  Revolution.  It  was  not  a  class 
of  ignorant  and  needy  adventurers  who  planted  them 
selves  upon  these  fertile  river  valleys,  and  laid  here  the 
broad  foundations  of  a  future  magnificent  State.  They 
were  intelligent  and  enlightened  men,  many  of  them 
highly  educated,  some  of  them  wealthy,  nearly  all  of 
them  in  comfortable  circumstances.  They  left  behind 
them  nowhere  a  community  more  respectable  in  an 
1ntellectual  point  of  view,  than  they  themselves  consti 
tuted  here.  Nor  has  Mississippi  retrograded.  If  the 
sons  of  her  immigrant  citizens  have  not  always  found 
education  at  home,  they  have  found  education.  And 
therefore,  if  the  State  is  really  infant  in  point  of  intel 
lectual  development,  to  the  extent  that  she  may  fairly 


LETTER.  105 

plead  her  infancy  in  bar  of  the  just  claims  of  the  world 
upon  her,  then  the  whole  continent  is  infant,  and  all 
America  is  entitled  to  equal  immunity  from  the  pressure 
of  similar  obligations. 

Neither  can  Mississippi  be  said  to  be  infant  in  point 
of  resources.  Already  among  the  foremost  of  the  pro 
ducing  States  of  the  Union,  and  annually  increasing 
the  amount  of  her  production  with  a  rapidity  outrun 
ning  all  preconceived  anticipation,  she  is  at  this  moment, 
regard  being  had  to  her  numerical  population,  one  of 
the  richest  states  in  the  world.  Moreover,  if  this  w^ere 
not  true,  the  question  immediately  in  discussion  relates 
not  to  the  diversion  of  any  part  of  the  wealth  of  Missis 
sippi  herself  to  the  encouragement  of  literary  advance 
ment  or  of  scientific  discovery ;  but  only  to  the  wisest 
and  best  mode  of  applying  a  fund  of  origin  foreign  to 
the  State,  held  by  Mississippi  in  trust  for  the  educational 
benefit  of  her  own  sons. 

Another  objection,  however,  is  sometimes  raised.  It 
is  said  that  the  entire  educational  system  of  the  State  is 
at  present  in  a  condition  of  very  imperfect  efficiency, 
and  is  almost  destitute  of  any  consistent  organization. 
Under  these  circumstances,  it  is  urged,  with  some  plau 
sibility,  as  the  dictate  of  expediency,  that  we  waive  for 
the  moment  the  claims  of  the  higher  education,  until  we 
shall  have  made  ample,  or  at  least  adequate,  provision 
for  the  lower.  No  citizen  of  the  State  is  a  more  ardent 
advocate,  or  a  more  zealous  friend,  of  the  cause  of  popu 
lar  education  than  the  undersigned.  But  it  is  for  this 


106  L  E  T  T  E  R. 

very  reason  mat  he  advocates,  first  of  all,  the  perfection 
of  the  institutions  of  the  highest  learning.  It  is  only 
through  the  instrumentality  of  these,  that  the  schools  of 
inferior  grade  can  be  made  efficient.  If  schools  without 
any  teachers  at  all  would  be  good  for  nothing,  then 
schools  with  teachers  themselves  of  inferior  scholarship 
and  a  limited  range  of  attainments  are  not  much  better. 
It  would  therefore  be  but  idle  legislation  which  should 
provide,  no  matter  how  liberally,  for  the  support  of 
schools,  and  should  fail  to  provide  at  the  same  time  for 
the  education  of  teachers.  Now,  in  a  prima-facie  view 
of  the  case,  two  circumstances  present  themselves  which 
apparently  break  the  force  of  this  argument ;  yet  which, 
on  closer  examination,  only  serve  to  confirm  it.  The 
first  is,  that  teachers  of  merit  are  often  actually  found 
to  take  charge  of  the  primary  and  secondary  schools  in 
States  in  which,  as  in  past  years  in  Mississippi,  collegi 
ate  institutions  have  not  existed  in  sufficient  number,  or 
on  a  scale  sufficiently  enlarged,  to  supply  them ;  and  the 
second  grows  out  of  the  circumstance  that  the  teachers 
of  the  most  numerous  class  of  schools — the  common 
schools,  as  they  are  called — are  not  usually  formed  di 
rectly  by  the  colleges,  but  by  the  schools  of  secondary 
grade.  As  to  the  first  of  these  facts,  observation  will 
show  that  the  teachers  not  made  by  ourselves  and  for 
ourselves,  but  who  appear  to  be  thus  made  to  our  hand, 
are  teachers  who  have  been  formed  in  the  schools  of 
higher  learning  in  other  States,  many  of  them  in  distant 
States,  and  who  have  come  among  us  because  they  per- 


LETTER.  107 

ceived  an  advantageous  field  to  be  here  open.  This 
supply  of  educational  assistance  is  evidently  precarious 
in  its  character,  and  without  any  guaranty  for  its  uni 
formity  of  merit  or  consistency  of  practice.  More  than 
this,  if  there  be  any  who  can  believe  that  it  is  in  keeping 
with  the  proper  dignity  of  a  great  and  wealthy  State 
like  Mississippi,  or  with  what  is  due  to  a  just  sense  of 
self-respect  in  her,  to  depend  on  foreign  aid  for  the 
supply  of  the  first  of  her  educational  necessities,  such 
persons  take  a  view  of  the  case  which  is  entirely  incom 
patible  with  the  convictions  of  the  undersigned. 

As  to  the  second  of  the  facts  above  suggested,  viz., 
that  many  teachers  of  the  primary  schools,  perhaps  the 
greater  number,  are  not  graduates  of  collegiate  institu 
tions,  and  as  to  the  inference  which  is  very  frequently, 
and  at  first  view  not  unnaturally,  drawn  from  this  cir 
cumstance,  that  the  colleges  have  nothing  to  do  with 
the  grade  of  their  scholarship, — if  we  consider  that  these 
teachers  must  nevertheless  be  formed  somewhere,  and 
that  the  schools  in  which  they  are  formed  must  be  in 
the  hands  of  teachers  of  a  higher  order,  who  themselves 
must  depend  upon  the  colleges  for  their  education,  it 
will  be  evident  that  the  reasoning  which  would  make 
popular  education  on  this  account  independent  of  the 
higher,  is  entirely  fallacious.  The  conclusion  is  inevita 
ble,  that  if  we  would  have  good  common  schools,  we 
must  first  of  all  have  good  colleges.  And  if  we  would 
aim  by  legislation  to  elevate  or  depress,  in  the  directest 
and  most  expeditious  mode  possible,  the  character  of 


108  LETTER. 

such  common-school  education  as  we  have,  we  can  ac 
complish  this  object  in  no  other  way  so  decisively  as  by 
exalting  or  degrading  the  character  of  the  higher  sem 
inaries. 

Now,  beyond  the  objections  which  have  been  thus 
disposed  of,  it  does  not  really  appear  that  there  exists 
any  other  capable  of  being  even  plausibly  urged  as  a 
reason  why  Mississippi  should  not  make  some  original 
contribution  on  her  own  part,  to  the  world's  advance 
ment  in  letters  and  science.  Why  should  she  not  ?  Is 
there  any  thing  in  her  laws  to  fetter  genius ;  in  her  cli 
mate  to  paralyze  industry ;  in  her  public  sentiment  to 
discourage  ambition  ?  Or  will  it  be  urged  in  her  be- 

o  o 

half,  as  an  excuse  of  her  dearth  of  performance,  that  the 
intellect  of  her  sons  is  unequal  to  the  task  of  achieving 
for  her  an  honorable  name  in  the  great  republic  of  let 
ters  ?  Surely  none  of  these  things  are  true. 

What,  then,  is  the  obvious  dictate  of  duty  ?  Is  it  not 
to  build  up  here,  upon  a  foundation  already  laid — the 
fittest  foundation  which  could  be  selected  in  all  our  bor 
ders — of  an  institution  of  the  highest  learning — an  insti 
tution,  which,  while  it  shall  continue  to  discharge  its 
present  functions  even  more  perfectly  than  ever  hereto 
fore,  shall  nevertheless  lift  its  aims  to  that  higher  level, 
at  which  it  may  number,  not  immature  youth  only,  but 
earnest  men  in  the  ranks  of  its  scholars ;  and  so  stimu 
late  the  activity  of  native  genius  as  presently  to  secure 
for  Mississippi  a  recognized  place  among  the  positive 
promoters  of  the  intellectual  progress  of  the  race  ? 


LETTER. 

If  among  the  modes  by  which  it  has  been  proposed 
to  enlist  Mississippi  in  the  service  of  science,  astronom 
ical  observation  has  been  early  and  prominently  pre 
sented,  this  is  because  astronomical  observation  affords 
one  of  the  most  direct  means  of  associating  useful  sci 
entific  labor  here,  with  useful  scientific  labor  in  other 
parts  of  the  country,  and  in  other  parts  of  the  world. 
Practical  astronomy  is  a  science  which  continually  opens 
out  to  itself  new  fields  of  labor,  even  while  yet  the  an 
cient  fields  are  far  from  being  exhausted.  Many  subjects 
require  a  delicate,  refined,  and  long-continued  scrutiny, 
in  which  the  associated  efforts  of  many  observatories 
have  a  peculiar  value.  Thus,  at  this  moment,  a  series  of 
observations  upon  the  moon  is  going  on  in  this  country, 
originally  suggested  by  Professor  Bache,  the  able  chief 
of  the  United  States  Coast  Survey,  in  concert  with  the 
eminent  physical  astronomer  of  Harvard  University, 
Prof.  Peirce,  in  which  the  co-operation  of  all  the  observ 
atories  of  the  Union  is  invoked,  and  in  reference  to  which 
computations  made  in  advance  for  the  meridian  and 
latitude  of  Oxford,  with  maps  of  the  phenomena  as  pre 
dicted  for  this  place,  have  been  forwarded  from  Wash 
ington  to  this  University,  at  intervals,  during  the  past 
eighteen  months.  Yet  in  this  labor,  in  the  unprovided 
state  of  the  observatory  of  the  University,  it  has  not 
been  permitted  us  to  bear  our  part.  Let  the  building 
but  be  completed,  and  the  instruments  contemplated  in 
its  plan  be  erected,  and  the  University  of  Mississippi 
may  become  immediately  and  honorably  associated  with 


110  LETTER. 

every  other  institution  engaged  in  the  promotion  of 
astronomical  science,  and  may  shortly  become  familiarly 
known  in  every  civilized  land,  as  one  of  the  noblest  cre 
ations  of  the  enlightened  intelligence  of  modern  times. 

The  task,  Gentlemen,  proposed  to  himself  by  the  un 
dersigned  in  the  preparation  of  this  letter,  is  ended. 
With  whatever  success  it  may  appear  in  the  event  that 
he  shall  have  succeeded  in  impressing  his  views  upon 
your  minds,  he  will  ever  carry  with  him  that  species  of 
contentment  which  springs  from  the  consciousness  of 
having,  according  to  the  light  within  him,  honestly  dis 
charged  his  duty  to  the  Board  who  have  honored  him 
with  their  confidence,  to  the  University  in  the  pros 
perity  of  which  he  feels  so  deep  an  interest,  and  to  the 
cause  of  education,  in  all  its  grades,  throughout  the  State 
of  Mississippi. 

To  your  hands  is  committed,  for  the  present  genera 
tion  at  least,  the  moulding  of  the  policy  of  this  institu 
tion.  Even  though  it  should  seem  to  you  advisable  still 
to  restrict  the  University  to  the  comparatively  humble 
field  of  usefulness  within  which  its  operations  have  been 
hitherto  confined,  it  will  yet  be  a  valuable  institution, 
and  one  with  which  you  may  be  justly  proud  that  your 
names  are  to  be  forever  associated.  For  this  will  be 
your  noblest  monument ;  and  no  matter  in  what  other, 
and  temporarily  perhaps  more  brilliant,  walks  of  life 
your  services  may  have  been  or  may  be  required  by 
your  State,  you  will  leave  behind  you  no  record  more 
permanently  visible  or  more  emphatically  honorable 


LETTER. 


than  this.  Political  distinctions  may  fill  up  the  present 
hour  with  idle  parade,  and  call  forth  noisy  applauses 
from  unthinking  crowds.  If  they  have  been  or  shall  be 
yours,  you  may  well  afford  to  esteem  lightly  the  reputa 
tion  they  leave  ;  but  it  can  never  be  without  a  feeling 
of  the  deepest  satisfaction  that  you  can  look  forward  to 
that  period  in  the  distant  future,  when  your  children 
and  your  children's  children  shall  find  here  a  prouder 
memorial  of  your  wisdom  than  all  the  boastful  legends 
ever  carved  in  brass  or  marble  could  afford  ;  and  point 
ing  to  the  University,  with  an  exultation  which  only 
the  worthy  descendants  of  worthy  sires  can  fully  com 
prehend,  shall  be  able  to  say,  "  Behold  !  their  works  do 
praise  them." 

Should  you,  however,  see  fit,  from  this  time  forward 
to  open  to  the  University  that  higher  sphere  of  labor 
and  influence  which  it  has  been  the  object  of  this  com 
munication  to  suggest,  there  may  be  in  reserve  for  it  a 
future  not  only  of  usefulness  but  of  renown  ;  and  to 
those  whose  wise  discernment  shall  have  enabled  them, 
at  this  early  day,  to  discover  all  the  greatness  and  gran 
deur  of  its  true  mission,  and  whose  judicious  action  shall 
have  put  in  the  way  to  fulfil  its  lofty  destiny,  posterity 
will  award  the  homage  of  a  still  higher  reverence. 

o  o 

For  grudgingly  as  a  world  too  usually  parsimonious 
where  it  should  be  liberal,  and  lavish  where  it  should 
be  frugal,  may  be  disposed  to  contribute  of  its  abun 
dance  for  the  encouragement  of  objects  whose  ten 
dency  is  to  elevate  the  race  in  point  of  intelligence 


112  LETTER. 

and  true  dignity,  it  is  yet,  after  all,  not  slow  to 
appreciate  that  breadth  of  view  and  loftiness  of  aim 
which  it  is  incapable  of  emulating ;  and  it  honors,  at 
least  with  its  applauses,  though  it  may  fail  to  load  with 
its  gifts,  all  who  contribute  directly  or  indirectly  to  the 
prosecution  of  the  mighty  conquests  of  the  human  under 
standing.  Well,  indeed,  may  it  do  so  !  For  what  are 
all  the  structures  man  can  rear  of  polished  marble  or 
ponderous  granite,  in  comparison  with  the  grand  and 
imperishable  creations  of  the  majestic  intellect !  And 
what  though  it  be  given  but  to  few,  by  the  force  of 
native  endowments  or  the  energy  of  an  indomitable  per 
severance,  personally  to  assist  in  lifting  to  a  loftier  and 
still  loftier  height  the  proud  temple  which  the  conspiring 
labors  of  successive  generations  have  reared  to  science  in 
the  midst  of  the  nations,  surely,  no  one  of  all  mankind 
can  be  insensible  to  the  sublimity  of  an  edifice  whose 
foundations  are  as  broad  as  the  boundaries  of  the  earth, 
and  whose  vaulted  dome  is  studded  with  the  stars  of 
heaven. 

With  the  highest  respect,  Gentlemen, 
Your  obedient  servant, 

F.  A.  P.  BARNARD. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 


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*  i     ' 


